In a major achievement for the Joint Forces combating the Maoist menace in West Bengal, Koteswar Rao, alias Kishenji, politburo member of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), was killed in a gun battle in Kushbani forest in Pashchim Medinipur district on Thursday.

Kishenji was also head of the extremist outfit's Military Commission that was carrying out operations in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa and Bihar.

According State Director General of Police, Mr Naparajit Mukherjee, the police had information of the movements of Kishenji and his close aide Suchitra Mahato, for the past two days. “Accordingly, Joint forces surrounded the area and commenced operations,” he said.

Kishenji's death may prove to be a crippling blow to the Maoist movement in West Bengal, particularly at a time when the extremists were trying to regroup after being pushed out from their earlier strongholds in Pashchim Medinipur and Bankura districts.

Mainly confined to the Ayodhya Hills in Purulia district, the Maoists have been trying to regain their lost ground in the past few months.

However, since the resumption of Joint operations in August, after a five-month pause, the militants, their strength greatly reduced, once again found themselves cornered and were on the run.

“Kishenji's death will have all-India ramification. After this, in West Bengal, the Maoists will find it very hard to regroup for quite some time,” SP Counter Insurgency, Mr Manoj Verma, told Business Line .

Considered one of the most dreaded and at the same time most elusive of the top Maoist leaders, Kishenji originally hailed from Andhra Pradesh. He was drawn into the revolutionary movement while doing his B.Sc. in Mathematics in Karimnagar, Andhra Pradesh, and subsequently became a full-time member of the CPI-ML (People's War) in 1974. He was conversant and several Indian languages including Telugu, Bengali, Hindi, English and several tribal dialects.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW