Led deadliest attacks: Who is Basavraj, top Maoist man killed in Abujhmad encounter?

Indian Express

21-05-2025

In a major breakthrough in the fight against Left Wing Extremism, security forces have gunned down top Maoist leader Nambala Keshav Rao, popularly known as Basavraj. He is one of the 26 Naxals killed in the encounter in Abujhmad, Chhattisgarh.
Basavraj succeeded Ganapathy as CPI (Maoist) general secretary in 2018. Ganapathy or Muppala Lakshman Rao was the first general secretary after the People's War and MCC merged in 2004 to form the CPI (Maoist). He is believed to have fled to the Philippines.
Basavraj, who graduated from REC Warangal, is around 70. He is best known for leading the attacks in which Maoist killed 76 CRPF personnel at Chintalnar, and for ambushing a Congress convoy at Jhiram Ghati in which state party leaders were stabbed and gunned down.
He hails from Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh and was attracted to the CPI(ML) People's War Group from an early age. He eventually joined it in the early 1980s.
Prior to getting attracted to Maoist ideology, Basavraj was a kabaddi player in school and junior college. He was known to be one of the most academically accomplished Naxal leaders, with a B.Tech degree from the National Institute of Technology, Warangal.
Basavraj was heading the CPI (Maoist) Military Commission when, in November 2018, he was asked to take over as the General Secretary after the resignation of Ganapathy.
Keshava Rao graduated at a time when the NIT, which was earlier known as Regional Engineering College (REC), had become a fountainhead of Maoist ideology and many students who studied at the institute went on to join the Maoist movement.
He is known to have hobnobbed with other guerrilla movements like the LTTE and worked extensively in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh.
He was also known as an explosives expert who prepared deadly IEDs used to ambush security forces, and was the NIA's most wanted man with a reward of over Rs 1 crore.
The killing of Araku Telugu Desam Party MLA Kidari Sarveswara Rao and ex-MLA Siveri Soma on September 23, 2018, by the Maoists is attributed to a plan set in motion by Basvaraj.
According to sources, the operation by the District Reserve Guard (DRG) from four districts of Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur and Kondagaon was undertaken based on information that a senior Maoist leader was hiding in a specific area in Abujhmad.
The Abujhmad is unsurveyed land larger than the state of Goa. While a large part of it is in Narayanpur, it also extends to Bijapur, Dantewada, Kanker and Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district.