Madvi Hidma.
Credit: Special Arrangement
Hyderabad: The Central Committee of the CPI (Maoist) has alleged that its senior leader and ‘Bastar Hero’ Madvi Hidma was captured by security forces in Vijayawada on November 15, tortured for several days, and later killed in a staged encounter in the Maredumilli forest area of Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Pradesh police on Tuesday said that combing parties killed Hidma along with him his wife Raje and four others in an exchange of fire when they were entering Andhra forest area. In a statement issued on Friday, CPI (Maoist) spokesperson Abhay claimed that Hidma, along with Rajesh and a few others, was travelling to Vijayawada on organizational work when they were betrayed by informants. Acting on instructions from the Union Home Ministry, the Andhra Pradesh Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) allegedly took them into custody on November 15.
Abhay said the group was subjected to severe torture during interrogation and subsequently killed in cold blood. “The police falsely claimed that an encounter took place in the Maredumilli forest, recovered weapons at the scene, and asserted that six people had been killed — all of which are blatant lies,” the statement said. According to the Maoists, Hidma was born in 1974 into a poor Adivasi family in Puvvarti village, Sukma district of Chhattisgarh. He studied up to the fifth standard in his village. In December 1997, he joined the underground revolutionary movement and became a full-time member in 1998, serving with the Basaguda squad, the statement added.
The Central Committee said that Hidma worked in Gadchiroli in 1999, in the Dandakaranya armed wing in 2000, and rose through multiple roles from Area Committee member (2001), LOS Commander (2002), Divisional Committee member (2005), and Company Commander (2006–2009). Eventually, he became Battalion Commander (2009), Battalion Secretary (2011), and by 2020, a member of the Special Zonal Committee as well as the Central Committee. In August 2024, he was elected secretary of the South Bastar Special Zonal Committee.
It also recalled how he wrote and distributed pamphlets and booklets to educate cadres. With strategic intelligence and battlefield acumen, he led major operations that seized hundreds of weapons from the security forces and expanded the strength of the PLGA, it said. His struggle will live on in the hearts of the oppressed masses — much like Bhagat Singh, Komaram Bheem, Gundadhur, Gend Singh, and Alluri Sitarama Raju.