“It’s over for the Maoists. The Communist Party of India (Maoist) is finished,” says a police source in Telangana.
Madvi Hidma, 51, one of the most wanted Maoist leaders, was killed in an encounter with the Andhra Pradesh police on Nov 18.
Madvi Hidma’s death leaves Maoist rank-and-file rudderless. The top Naxalite commander had masterminded several attacks over the last two decades.
Among the attacks attributed to him:
Tadmetla (2010): 76 CRPF personnel killed
Bankupara (2017): 12 CRPF jawans killed
Burkapal (2017): 25 CRPF personnel killed
Minpa–Burkapal (2020): 17 personnel killed
Tekulgudem–Pedagelur (2021): 22 DRG, STF and CoBRA personnel killed
As a local tribal leader, his words mattered to the cadres in Chhattisgarh.
Hidma, who had walked the same forests as native tribals, who spoke their dialects, and who rose despite the cultural ceiling, became their symbol.
However, it can be also stated that Hidma was turned into a mythical figure.
The fact of the matter is he "only executed" party orders.
Vivekanand Sinha, Additional Director General (ADG), Anti-Naxal Operations, said there has been a consistent special strategy in place for the past two years.
"There is a joint action plan. It’s also not the work of just two years" Sinha has been quoted in 'The Indian Express' as stating.
Under Vivekanand Sinha, Additional Director General (ADG), Anti-Naxal Operations, Chhattisgarh, the state police, in coordination with central forces, has dealt a severe blow to the banned CPI-Maoist.
After years of pursuit, security forces have finally killed Madvi Hidma.
What does this encounter mean operationally for the security grid in Chhattisgarh, and how significant is this moment for the forces on the ground?
( Extra info ::::
** The game changer in the counter-Naxal strategy in Chhattisgarh region has been the special emphasis on improving road connectivity.
** The state has successfully executed 11 key road projects in the crucial Sukma, Bijapur and Jagdalpur districts.
**In 2021, the state government with active support from the Centre, constructed the critical Palli-Barsur axis road, which has facilitated movement of security forces to inaccessible areas in Bodli and Kedameta.
The enhanced combat capability of the local police through police modernisation (Bastariya Battalion), fortified police stations, )
***
Besides Hidma, a Central Committee member of the CPI(Maoist), his wife and four others were among those killed.
Kamlochan Kashyap, Deputy Inspector General of South Bastar, first encountered Madvi Hidma in 2007 after a deadly Maoist attack. Hidma rose to become a formidable leader, leading Battalion 1 in numerous deadly attacks on security forces.
Despite years of pursuit, Hidma remained elusive due to challenging terrain and lack of police presence.
Why Madvi Hidma's killing is a big blow to Maoists ?
Of course, he was ruthless and a key figure of inspiration for cadres.
After eliminating a host of senior leaders, the central security forces had turned attention to Hidma. He was last known to have been holed up in Dandakaranya
Much importantly, Madvi Hidma was a tribal from Bastar who worked his way up from being a child Maoist cadre to holding key posts in the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).
For nearly three decades, the name Madvi Hidma had travelled through the forests of Bastar — a warning, a legend, often a myth.
His death, police say, may be the single biggest blow to the CPI (Maoist) in the last 20 years, because he was the last inspirational figure left in a movement struggling with age, exhaustion, and irrelevance.
Hidma’s story begins in Puvarti, a tiny village on the Sukma–Bijapur border that until a few years ago was considered impenetrable Maoist terrain.
Recruited in 1991 as a Bal Sangham cadre — a child fighter — by senior leaders Ramanna and Badranna, he grew up entirely inside the movement. Over the years, photographs of him surfaced sporadically: a wiry tribal man in his thirties or forties, a thin moustache, usually carrying an AK-47.
His name too shifted — “Mandavi” in some records, “Madvi” in others — adding to the haze surrounding him.
But within the Maoist ranks, especially among the local tribal cadre, there was no confusion. Hidma was theirs — a Bastar boy who had not only risen through the system but conquered it.
In a leadership dominated by Telugu-speaking ideological veterans from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, he was the rare exception.
As a 'tribal' from Bastar; he made a big difference --- Because Maoism in Bastar is sustained almost entirely by adivasi fighters, many of whom joined young.
There has been a deep ideological grounding too.
For them, the movement has long been less about doctrine and more about loyalty, identity, and the idea of resistance.
As a battlefield commander, Hidma’s organisational climb was swift.
After a brief stint in Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat region in 2002, he returned to Bastar and, by 2004, had become secretary of the Konta Area Committee. Three years later, he was commander of Company No. 3. In 2009, he was appointed deputy commander of the Maoists’ most lethal fighting force — PLGA Battalion No. 1 — and within the year, its chief.
Between 2009 and 2021, as Battalion No. 1’s commander, he engineered the deadliest phase of the insurgency. His attacks didn’t merely kill soldiers — they shook the morale of the security establishment.
His actions altered counter-insurgency strategies, and briefly revived a movement that was otherwise steadily losing ideological steam. He is also believed to have played a key role in the 2013 Jhiram Ghati (Darbha) attack, which wiped out the Congress leadership in Chhattisgarh.
Multiple surrendered Maoists have described him as a “master executioner” — a man who planned meticulously, read terrain like a map etched into his palm, and maintained absolute composure under fire. “He speaks to the cadre like an equal,” one told interrogators. “In an ambush, he never panics.”
Why security forces could never catch Hidma
Several large-scale operations were launched specifically to capture or kill Hidma. Operation Prahaar in 2017 — undertaken after the Bhejji and Burkapal killings — involved a massive pincer movement by Chhattisgarh police and central forces. For days, teams combed the forests of Tondamarka, an area long considered a Maoist capital. The police believed Hidma had been badly injured — possibly carried away in a tractor — but within months he emerged again, leading fresh attacks.
The 2021 Tekulgudem encounter was another example. Acting on intelligence about Hidma’s presence near Puvarti, around 800 personnel — from CRPF, CoBRA, the DRG and STF — moved into the area. Instead, they walked into a trap. Hidma’s battalion, positioned on a hill, opened sustained LMG fire, killing 22 soldiers.
This year’s Karegutta Hills operations, involving nearly 25,000 personnel in the largest counter-Maoist deployment in decades, also aimed to corner him.
Thirty-one Maoists were killed. Hidma escaped yet again.
His elusiveness was not magic, but structure.
He always travelled with three concentric security rings, rarely used roads, and shifted rapidly through dense forested slopes, streams and nullahs. The lack of phone networks meant that even when intelligence was accurate, it was already several hours old by the time security forces acted.
As a senior officer put it once: “Even when we knew exactly where he was, we often couldn’t get there quickly enough.”
If Basavaraju, the Maoist General Secretary killed in May, represented the ideological continuity of the movement, Hidma represented its emotional and military core in Bastar.
As older leaders died or fell ill, he increasingly “called the shots”.
In fact, although the Maoists appointed Devuji as General Secretary after Basavaraju’s death, intelligence suggested that it was Hidma who shaped key operational decisions.
Earlier this year, the organisation — bowing to pressure from tribal cadre — promoted him to the Central Committee, the second-highest decision-making body. Sources say this elevation came after discontent grew over Telugu dominance.
Senior figures like Mallojula Venugopal Rao are known to have left the organisation partly due to these internal tensions.
Chhattisgarh Home Minister Vijay Sharma recently reached out to Hidma’s mother, who appealed:
“Where are you, son? Please come home. We’ll earn a living and stay here… If you were nearby, I would have searched for you in the jungle.”
Yet, even mediators who spoke to him say Hidma’s response never changed. “I will fight even if I am the only one left.”
Extra info:
** While the violent incidents related to left-wing extremism have come down to manageable levels in most of the affected states (see figure) in the last decade, Chhattisgarh still remains one of the key bastions of the CPI-Maoists.
** Not long ago, as many as 18 (out of a total of 27) districts of the state were under the influence of extremist organisations. Dantewada, Bijapur, Narayanpur, Bastar and Kanker among others remain some of the most affected districts as far as Maoist insurgency is concerned.
** Not too long ago, Maoists launched some major attacks, particularly the massacre of 76 CRPF soldiers in 2010 and the killing of the entire top leadership of the Congress Party in Chhattisgarh in 2013.
***
Why Hidma's death matters ?
It's the end of a chapter. To understand the significance of his killing, one must look at the movement’s present condition. The Maoist insurgency in Dandakaranya is now a frail shadow of its former self.
Much of the top leadership has either surrendered or been killed.
The rest is ageing with many senior figures suffering chronic illnesses.
Fresh recruitment has dried up, the ideological appeal has collapsed, security forces have penetrated deep into Abujhmaad.
Resources and safe zones have shrunk sharply.
In this landscape, Hidma was the last source of inspiration — the last figure cadres believed in, admired, and were willing to fight for.
Former CRPF DG K Durga Prasad had earlier told The Indian Express: “The killing of Basavaraju was big, but if they kill Hidma, the cadres will be completely demoralised. As long as he is there, they will sustain.”
The Fallout
The Maoists will struggle to fill the vacuum. They may disperse into smaller groups, avoid direct confrontation.
Some of them will be forced to withdraw deeper into the forests near Pamed where forces still have limited presence.
A push for negotiations, or at least a unilateral ceasefire, is likely.
Security forces now believe this is the moment to consolidate gains — not just militarily, but administratively.
Without governance, institutions, roads, courts and welfare systems filling the vacuum, there is apprehension another version of the movement could emerge in the future.
When PWG’s Nalla Adi Reddy was killed in 1999, it was expected that Ganapathy would surrender. Instead, he became stronger.
The situation is different now, but forces cannot stop until the last candle of Naxalsm - often provided oxygen of support by political patronage - is extinguished.
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| Some credit go to him !! |
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