KOTESHWARA RAOALIAS KISHENJI

KOTESHWARA RAOALIAS KISHENJI

Communist Party of India (Maoist) Polit Bureau member Koteshwara Rao alias Kishenji, who has been spearheading Maoist operations in West Bengal's Jangalmahal region, is suspected to have been killed in an encounter in the Burisole forest area in Paschim Medinipur district on Thursday,24^th November,2011.“A body was found with an AK-47 and a hearing aid beside. We suspect that the AK-47 was probably used by Kishenji, but cannot comment until the identification is complete,” said Director-General of Police Naparajit Mukherjee.

Joint security forces, led by Superintendent of Police Praveen Tripathi, had launched massive combing operations in the Kushbani forest area bordering Jharkhand over the last couple of days. According to the police, there was a “heavy exchange of fire” in the forest area between 4.30 p.m. and 5.30 p.m. after the police noticed the movement of a Maoist squad there. At the end of the encounter, a body was found. “There are many similarities including the AK 47 which Kishenji uses, and the hearing aid. But we will not be able to confirm that it is Kishenji's body unless we show it to at least two people who could identify it,” Inspector-General (Western Range) Gangeshwar Singh told The Hindu over telephone.

There were reports that Suchitra Mahato, another Maoist leader and wife of Sasadhar Mahato who was killed in encounter in March, was among those injured. She was present with Kishenji. In New Delhi, Union Home Secretary R.K. Singh told journalists that Maoists had suffered a huge setback, pointing out that the police were “99 per cent” sure of the death of Kishenji. The Ministry had sent his latest photograph to the State. Some time before the encounter, the security forces raided a house at nearby Gosaibandh, where a bag containing a laptop, believed to be Kishenji's, was seized, among other items. 

       Maoist movement in the country has suffered a massive blow with the killing of Mallojula Koteshwara Rao, popularly known as Kishenji, in West Bengal.The biggest credit for this 57-year-old Maoist leader is the building of Lalgarh movement in West Bengal, which is now billed as the second Naxalbari in India. One of the first generation founding leaders of erstwhile CPI-ML People's War (PW) in Andhra Pradesh, Kishenji left an indelible imprint in building the revolutionary movement not just in West Bengal, but also in Andhra Pradesh and Dandakaranya (part of which is Chhattisgarh).

While most of the leaders of the ultra left movement in India were either strong on an ideological plane or had only had sound military capabilities, Kishenji belonged to the rare class of being an able ideologue and also the best in military field craft. Perhaps, it was this rare capability that help the Lalgarh movement reach new scales on the revolutionary arena.Intelligence officers who keep track of the Left Wing Extremist (LWE) movement concede that Kishenji's understanding of guerrilla tactics and strategies was phenomenal. For example, when the Lalgarh resistance movement was in its nascent stage, Kishenji's idea of digging huge trenches across the roads to halt movement of security forces was a huge hit. Kishenji, counter insurgency experts concede, had effectively replicated (Ho Chi Minh trails – digging trenches on roads) a tactic employed by Vietnamese guerrillas.

Kishenji, a Brahmin by caste, was born in Peddapalli town of Karimnagar district, about 200 km from Hyderabad and was a graduate by the time CPI (ML) People's War was formed. Known for his straightforward approach, unlike his comrade-in-arms Muppala Laxmana Rao alias Ganapathi (now Maoist Chief), Kishenji landed himself in troubles within his party often. He was the leader of a Dalam (squad) in which Ganapathi was a member in 1980. He became the secretary of the People's War for Andhra Pradesh and was shifted to Dandakaranya by 1985 after his colleagues accused him of suffering from severe deviations. In Dandakaranya too, he proved his mettle by enhancing the military capabilities of the Maoist cadres and then he shifted to West Bengal by 1995. Very significantly, that was the time, the PW had only a couple of mass organisations working in West Bengal and Bihar/Jharkhand or in other North Indian States. By 2004 he built a perfect underground squad structure and after PW merged with MCCI to form CPI Maoist, the revolutionary movement got further strengthened. His role in unification of the revolutionary forces is also significant and he is stated to have played a crucial role in merger talks between MCCI and PW.

Kishenji, was once arrested in Karimnagar district in 1977 when villagers of Marigadda grew suspicious of him and handed him over to police. In 1985, police came close to arresting him along with Nalla Adi Reddy (killed later by police in 2000), in Dilsukhnagar area of Hyderabad when he opened fire on the police team and escaped.The slain leader was a member of the Central Committee, Central Military Commission and the Polit Bureau of the CPI Maoist, and carried a reward of Rs. 12 lakh announced by the Andhra Pradesh government. His brother Mallojula Venugopal is also another Central Committee member, who is known to have been appointed as the spokesman of the CPI (Maoist) with a nom de guerre of Abhay.Kishenji's death comes at a time, when the Centre has begun claiming that the Maoist violence and activity has declined in all the LWE affected States, except Bihar and Maharashtra.According to a written reply given to Rajya Sabha on Wednesday by Union Minister of State for Home Jitendra Singh, there were 1,468 violent incidents up to November 2011 in nine States, while the figure stood at 1,925 for the corresponding period in 2010. Maoists killed 49 persons this year, while 207 were killed in 2010.

                                                                               Prof. John Kurakar