Two senior Naxal leaders were killed in an encounter with security forces in the Abhujmad region near the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border on Monday. The bodies have been identified as those of Central Committee Members Raju Dada, also known as Katta Ramachandra Reddy, and Kosa Dada, also known as Kadari Satyanarayana Reddy, both carrying a reward of Rs 40 lakh each.

During the operation in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district, the security forces also recovered an AK-47 rifle, an INSAS rifle, a BGL launcher, a large quantity of explosives, Naxal literature and other items from the site.

Hours after the successful operation, Union Home Minister Amit Shah in a post on X announced that security forces have achieved another success in the ongoing operation against Naxal groups. The operation is part of ongoing efforts in the region to weaken naxalite presence.

“Today, our security forces have achieved another major victory against the Naxalites. In the Abujhmad region of Narayanpur along the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border, our forces eliminated two Central Committee Member Naxal leaders – Katta Ramachandra Reddy and Kadri Satyanarayan Reddy. Our security forces are systematically dismantling the top leadership of the Naxals, breaking the backbone of red terror,” Shah said in the post.

In another operation last Monday, the CRPF’s CoBRA Battalion and Jharkhand Police killed three high-ranking Maoist leaders in Hazaribagh district. The operation, based on intelligence inputs, began around 6 am in Karandi village near the Giridih-Bokaro border.

The main target, Sahdeo Soren, a Central Committee member of CPI (Maoist) with a Rs 1 crore bounty, was killed. Two others, Raghunath Hembram (Rs 25 lakh reward) and Birsen Ganjhu (Rs 10 lakh reward), were also neutralised on September 15.

Following this operation, Shah had announced that Naxalism has been fully eliminated from Jharkhand’s Bokaro region and stated that the government aims to end Naxal presence across the country.

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