Maoist top gun Gudsa Usendi, wife surrender

Maoist top gun and Dandakaranya special zonal committee spokesperson Gumudavelli Venkatakrishna Prasad alias “Gudsa Usendi” surrendered on Wednesday before the Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) in Hyderabad along with his wife, Raji.

Reasons for his surrender are not clear. While unofficial sources said that he came out on health grounds, police sources said he got “disgusted” with the party line. The police see this as a big setback to the Maoist party.

Officials are questioning him and may announce the arrest officially on Thursday. He carried a cash reward of Rs 15 lakh on his head. Usendi is his party name in the capacity as official spokesperson of Dandakaranya special zonal committee. He is from Kadivendi village in the Devaruppala block of Warangal district in Telangana.

Usendi, 53, has been associated with the Maoist party for nearly three decades. He got attracted to the party after his graduation. Most of his time, he spent out of Andhra Pradesh boundaries. He served in various capacities in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. He is believed to have handled the Bastar ambush on a huge 20-vehicle Congress convoy killing 27 people, including Mahendra Karma and former Union minister V C Shukla, in May last year. More than a dozen cases are pending against him.

About five years ago, he was made the Dandakaranya special zonal committee spokesperson. The party respected him as an intellectual and strategist. Usendi is famous for being accessible to media and others through ghost email IDs and even on mobile phones, almost like Kishenji. He also operates a Facebook page where he declared: “Gudsa Usendi never dies. He is Phantom of Danteswada”.

In a latest interview before the Chhattisgarh elections, he said the party would not stall the poll process but would target the corrupt and anti-poor elements. He described the killing of former Union minister V C Shukla, Chhattisgarh PCC chief Nand Kumar Patel and senior Congress leader Mahendra Karma and others as a retaliation for the Adivasis to the state suppression in the guise of Operation Green Hunt.