Born in Purvati village in Sukma district in Chhattisgarh, Hidma began as a Bastar Dalam member before rising through the ranks of the Dandakarnya Special Zonal Committee. Several states had announced a reward for Hidma who was considered an expert in guerrilla attacks
The death of dreaded Maoist commander and strategist Madvi Hidma and IED expert Meturi Joka Rao, also known as Tech Shankar, in a police encounter at Maredumilli in Alluri Sitaramaraju district in Andhra Pradesh, closes a chapter on the Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) in India.
Born in Purvati village in Sukma district in Chhattisgarh, Hidma began as a Bastar Dalam member before rising through the ranks of the Dandakarnya Special Zonal Committee. Several states had announced a reward for Hidma who was considered an expert in guerrilla attacks.
Over the past two decades, he allegedly masterminded major attacks on security forces, including the 2010 ambush in Dantewada that killed 76 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the 2013 Jhiram Ghati attack that killed 27 people, including senior Congress leaders, and the 2021 Sukma ambush that left 22 paramilitary personnel dead.
The CPI-Maoist cadre base was depleted, especially after a deadly 21-day counter-insurgency operation in Karregutta, where Central forces used drones and satellite images to guide around 5,000 security personnel. Several top Maoist leaders were killed and a large number of Maoist cadres laid down their arms recently in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, highlighting the fact that the Left-wing Extremism has lost its popular support.
As things stand today, the armed Naxal ideology which started in West Bengal’s Naxalbari village in July 1972 is on its deathbed and the country could as well be free of armed Maoists by March 2026 — a deadline by Union home minister Amit Shah.
However, if policymakers credit this success only to the military ruthlessness, they would be mistaken. Due credit should also be awarded to the government’s welfare and development policies, which weaned popular support away from the Maoists and strengthened the hands of security forces. The Narendra Modi government must be congratulated for ending one of the country’s long-festering internal security issues
