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Visakhapatnam, Nov 20 (IANS) Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) Harish Kumar Gupta on Thursday expressed confidence that Andhra Pradesh will be free from Maoists by the end of next March.
Saying that the police have achieved major success in two encounters in the Maredumilli forests of Alluri Seetharamaraju district, he said the police are taking all measures to achieve the target of making Andhra Pradesh free from Left Wing Extremism by March 2026 as part of the target set by the Union Home Ministry.
Addressing a press conference at Rampachodavaram in Alluri Seethamaraju district on Thursday, he said all security forces are working to achieve the target.
The DGP had reached here to review the ‘Operation Sambhav’ being run to eliminate the Maoists who had entered Maredumili Agency in the Andhra Odisha border area from the neighboring state Chhattisgarh.
He described the two encounters in Maredumili as a big success. In these encounters, 13 Maoists including top Maoist commander Madvi Hidma and explosives expert Metturi Joga Rao alias Tek Shankar were killed.
The DGP said police had also arrested 50 Maoists from five districts on November 18. All of them had come to Andhra Pradesh from Chhattisgarh as part of their efforts to establish a Maoist haven.
He reiterated his call to all Maoists to surrender and join the national mainstream. He warned that those refusing to surrender would either be captured or neutralized.
“There is no place for violence in Andhra Pradesh,” the DGP said.
The DGP clarified that CPI (Maoist) general secretary Thippiri Tirupati alias Devuji is not in police custody.
Nine members of Devuji’s security team were among 50 Maoists arrested across five districts on November 18, hours after an encounter in the forests of Alluri Sitamaraju district in which top Maoist commander Madvi Hidma, his wife Raje and four others were killed.
A day after Hidma’s killing, seven Maoists, including explosives expert Metturi Joga Rao alias Tek Shankar and six others, were killed in the same area.
Additional Director General of Police (Intelligence) Mahesh Chandra Laddha briefed the DGP about Operation Sambhav by displaying the weapons seized from the encounter sites.
Laddha had on Wednesday said that under pressure of operations by security forces, Maoists from Chhattisgarh are entering Andhra Pradesh and turning it into a sanctuary zone and they are planning to revive Maoist activity.
–IANS
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