Basavaraju, the most aged and powerful of India’s Naxalite (Maoist insurgency) movement top leaders, has been officially reported killed in a major counter-insurgency operation. Security agencies said that they recovered 27 Naxalite corpses, including Basavaraju’s, one of the biggest hits to the movement within the last few years.
Basavaraju, widely regarded as the ideological and strategic mastermind of the Maoist leadership, was a prized target for Indian officials. His killing is considered a debilitating loss for the underground organization, which has waged a half-century insurgency, mostly in central and eastern India.
The operation, conducted in a forest region of Chhattisgarh, also resulted in the recovery of a huge arsenal of weapons, ammunition, and communication equipment. The intelligence-based strike was “accurate and high-impact” in nature, intended to disrupt the leadership nucleus of outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist).
Indian security forces claim this is a turning point in the campaign against left-wing extremism, with attempts now turned to deradicalization and development in these areas. Other senior leaders are being hunted down and may have escaped during the operation.
