CPI (Maoist) loses another central committee member from Telangana ahead of 21st anniversary of its formation slated later this month

In less than three months, the proscribed Communist Party of India (Maoist) had lost another Central Committee Member from Telangana in ‘intensified anti-Maoist operations’ outside the State.

Ahead of the 21^st anniversary of its formation, the banned outfit suffered yet another jolt following the death of its Central Committee member Modem Balakrishna alias Manoj, a native of the erstwhile Warangal district, in an ‘encounter’ with security forces in Chhattisgarh’s Gariaband district on Thursday.

It may be mentioned that another Central Committee member of the outlawed organisation, Gajerla Ravi alias Ganesh, also a native of the erstwhile composite Warangal district, was killed in an ‘exchange of fire’ with police in Andhra Pradesh’s Alluri Sitharama Raju district on July 18 this year.

A senior Maoist, Jadi Venkati, a native of Chandravelli village in Mancherial district, is suspected to be among 10 Maoists killed in Thursday’s ‘encounter’ in Chhattisgarh.

The outlawed CPI (Maoist) Telangana State Committee member Bhaskar alias Mailarapu Adellu of Pochera village in Adilabad district was killed in a ‘gunfight’ with security forces in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district on June 5.

Earlier this year, G. Renuka, in-charge of the press team for the CPI (Maoist) Central Regional Bureau (CRB), was killed in a reported encounter with security forces in the forest area along Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada-Bijapur border on March 31.

She hailed from Kadavendi village in the former undivided Warangal district (now in Jangaon district). The CPI (Maoist) dubbed the encounter as a ‘staged execution’.

According to police, Balakrishna alias Manoj was the in-charge secretary of the CPI (Maoist) Odisha State Committee. He was wanted in several cases of Maoist violence, including some major attacks on security forces in Odisha.

He joined the ranks of the erstwhile People’s War Group (PWG) during his college days in 1983, police sources added.

He held some key posts in the banned organisation in South Telangana before moving to the Odisha-Chhattisgarh border region, where he worked underground for more than two-and-a-half decades in the left-wing extremist movement till his death on Thursday.