Madvi Hidma, top Naxalite commander and one of India’s most wanted Maoist commanders, was killed in an encounter in Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday morning. Madvi Hidma, also known by aliases such as Hidmalu and Santosh, was a figure whose name became synonymous with some of the deadliest attacks in the country’s decades-long insurgency. Madvi Hidma, his wife and others were trying to flee Chhattisgarh when they were surrounded by security forces in the Maredumilli forest in Alluri Sitarama Raju district between 6 am and 7 am. Madvi was killed him in an operation in the bordering area of Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, marking as one of the most significant blows to the outlawed CPI (Maoist) in recent years, reports HT.
Who is Madvi Hidma?
According to a report in PTI, Mavi Hidma was a Central Committee member and leader of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee, which orchestrated several deadly attacks in south Bastar, also responsible for at least 26 lethal armed attacks. Hidma’s elimination is the “last nail in the coffin” of severely-weakened insurgency in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh.
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Madvi Hidma was a native of Sukma district in Chhattisgarh, his age and appearance has remained a mystery over the years until his photograph surfaced earlier this year. Hidma was the head of Maoists’ People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) Battalion No. 1, the strongest military formation of the outfit in Dandakaranya, which spans across Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, and Maharashtra, officials told PTI.
Madvi Hidma was promoted to Maoists’ Central Committee last year. He joined the banned organisation in the late 1990s as a ground-level organiser. Madvi Hidma came under the scanner of security officials after the 2010 Tadmetla attack, which killed 76 security personnel. He had helped another top Maoist commander, Papa Rao, carry out the strike. Since then, his name has come up repeatedly following every major ambush on security forces in Bastar.
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Why Madvi Hidma remained untraceable for years
Hidma, who spent nearly two decades rising through the Maoist ranks, was known for his extensive knowledge of the Abujhmad and Sukma-Bijapur forest belt, as per HT report. A formidable operation commander in the Bastar region, he aced in guerrilla warfare. Hidma was known to carry an AK-47 rifle, while members of his huge unit moved with sophisticated weapons. His four-layered security ring inside the forests reportedly made him untraceable for years, according to a PTI report. His wife, Raje, was also active in the same battalion and allegedly involved in almost every major Maoist strike.
But within the past two years, the anti-Naxal operations intensified and dented Madvi Hidma’s security cover. The anti-Naxal operations forced Hidma to flee deeper into the forests along the Chhattisgarh-Telangana and Chhattisgarh-Andhra Pradesh borders to seek shelter, officials told PTI. “Hidma had acquired a heroic image among his cadres, and his elimination is a major step towards eliminating Maoism from the Bastar region,” a Chhattisgarh Police officer told PTI.
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Madvi Hidma’s major attacks
Security agencies linked Madvi Hidma to nearly every major Maoist attack in the past two decades. His name appears in police records for the 2010 Dantewada massacre in which 76 CRPF personnel were killed, the 2013 Darbha valley attack that wiped out the top Congress leadership in Chhattisgarh, the 2017 twin attacks in Sukma which left 37 personnel dead, and the 2021 Tarrem ambush in Bijapur.
In 2011, during the Tadmetla attack where 75 CRPF men were killed, agencies say he was present on the spot. His notoriety earned him a place on the NIA’s most-wanted list, with cumulative rewards from central and state agencies exceeding ₹1 crore, reports HT. In recent years, Hidma continued to elude security forces despite intensified operations.