Forces raze memorials in Maoist citadels

Govt wants to wipe out Maoist extremism by March 31, 2026. HT explores the contours of this battle

- Prawesh Lama

NEW DELHI: On February 9, security forces gunned down 31 Maoists in the jungles of Indravati National Park in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district, inflicting the highest single-day toll on the insurgency at the time. After an eight-hour gunbattle involving at least a thousand paramilitary and police personnel, the forces recovered the bodies of 31 uniformed Maoists, along with a large cache of weapons, including AK47s, SLRs, INSAS rifles, .303 rifles, BGL launchers, and explosives.

But that's not all the forces found. "After the encounter, the forces also came across a tall stone memorial built in the memory of the Maoists' senior comrade, Katakam Sudarshan, aka Anand," said a Central Reserve Police Force officer in Bijapur, who asked not to be named.

Katakam Sudarshan, a politburo member of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) died of natural causes on May 31, 2023. "We had information about the memorial but we had never entered the area until a few months ago as it was a Naxal stronghold. The area was not under our control so we had left it untouched all these years," added the officer.

"The stone structure has now been destroyed."

That's not the only one. Over the last year, as security forces pushed deeper into the Maoist heartland and made inroads into territories considered too hostile even five years ago, they started smashing scores of what they claim are makeshift memorials to various Maoist leaders. This symbolic purge — to remove traces of Maoist influence across the once-infamous red corridor —has now become a part of the government's aggressive move to wipe out the decades-old insurgency by next spring.

"Such structures help Naxals keep the locals under their control by wielding a fake narrative that the area is under their control," the officer quoted above said.