61 Maoists, including top leader Bhupati, surrender in Maharashtra

In a major blow to the Maoist movement in Maharashtra, 61 Maoists, including prominent central committee member of CPI (Maoist) Mallojula Venugopal Rao alias Bhupati, surrendered in front of the Maharashtra Police at Fodewada village in Bhamragad in the intervening night of October 13 and 14. The 70-year-old Bhupati is known to be one of the brains behind the extremist movement. Other insurgents who surrendered include two State zonal committee members, 10 divisional committee members and cadres from Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh.

The Maoists handed over 54 weapons, including seven AK47s, six SLRs and six INSAS rifles. Bhupati’s surrender comes months after his wife Tarakka, alias Vimala Sidam, also a Maoist leader, turned herself in. His sister-in-law had surrendered in front of the Telangana Police.

“Bhupati was the brain or the guiding spirit behind the Naxal movement. He was the number two in the movement and was to become the general secretary. Ever since his wife surrendered, he had been openly talking about the idea of surrendering and joining the mainstream. He was unhappy with the way the movement was going, about the way the party had changed lines,” an official said.

A senior official told The Hindu that with Bhupati’s surrender, “the core family of the Naxal movement” has ended and that it is a “major step in the elimination” of the insurgency. “It has happened after four to five months of consistent efforts by the Maharashtra Police,” the official said, adding that there was “stiff competition between police forces of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Telangana to secure the surrender of the most-dreaded Naxal leader.”

An official said that after an encounter in Chhattisgarh, Bhupati was sceptical about surrendering there. “With the kind of resistance from the Telangana Naxal leadership against his idea of surrendering, he was not sure if he could traverse a long distance and reach Hyderabad safely to surrender,” the official said, adding that Bhupati also saw “the treatment given to others who had surrendered in Maharashtra, including his wife”.

“The official surrender will take place in front of the Chief Minister of Maharashtra on Wednesday (October 15, 2025) morning,” the official said.

A commerce graduate from Pedapalli in Telangana, Bhupati was a Polit Bureau member of the CPI (Maoist) and is the brother of Kishenji, the dreaded Maoist leader gunned down in 2011 in West Bengal. Another sibling, Azad, was also a Maoist killed 20 years ago.

Since the start of the insurgency in Maharashtra in 1980, 1,522 Maoists have surrendered, 4,123 have been arrested and 347 have been killed in operations, show government data.