Maoist leader Nambala Keshav Rao among 27 killed in gunfight with security forces: Centre

Nambala Keshav Rao, the leader of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), was among the 27 suspected Maoists killed in a gunfight with security forces in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur on Wednesday, the Union government said.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah described CPI (Maoist) General Secretary Rao, who is also known as Basavaraju, as the “backbone of the Naxal movement”. His killing is a “landmark achievement in the battle to eliminate Naxalism”, Shah said on social media.

“This is the first time in three decades of Bharat’s battle against Naxalism that a general secretary-ranked leader has been neutralised by our forces,” said the Union home minister.

The Union government also said that Operation Black Forest had concluded. Fifty-four suspected Maoists had been arrested and 84 had surrendered in Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Maharashtra, the home ministry said.

The Chhattisgarh Police had on Wednesday announced that 27 suspected Maoists were killed in a gunfight with security forces in the state’s Abujhmad region.

The gunfight took place near Boter village in the Abujhmad region. Abujhmad is a hilly forest area covering the Narayanpur, Bijapur and Dantewada districts of Chhattisgarh.

A District Reserve Guard team member was also killed in the gunfight, according to the police.

It is “estimated that several senior-level Maoist cadres have either been killed or seriously injured” in the gunfight, the police...

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