How selfie with wife led security forces to top Maoist leader Chalapathi in Chhattisgarh

Bhubaneswar: Chalapathi was careful in his movements and remained a mystery for decades until a selfie with his wife led security forces to him. One among the top seven in CPI(Maoist) ranks, he was killed along with 13 "comrades" in an operation at the Odisha-Chhattisgarh border.

Ramachandra Reddy, better known as Chalapathi, operated in the shadows and led the Maoist attack in Odisha's Nayagarh district in 2008 in which 13 security personnel were killed.

"Though Ramakrishna, a top Maoist leader who is now dead, masterminded the attack of February 15, 2008, Chalapathi was the person who executed it on the ground. He was also the person who ensured that the Maoists could successfully escape from Nayagarh town after robbing the police armoury," a senior officer involved in anti-Naxal operations said on Wednesday.

Chalapathi ensured that police reinforcements could not enter Nayagarh when the attack on the armoury was underway, he said, adding that the Maoists had blocked all roads leading to the town with massive tree trunks.

Hailing from Andhra Pradesh's Chittoor district, where Maoist activities have ended now, Chalapathi was mainly active in Chhattisgarh and Odisha, officials said.

Over the last few years, he had been staying in Darabha in Chhattishgarh's Bastar district as he couldn't travel much due to problems with his knees. He was in his mid-60s, they said.

Chalapati joined the banned People's War Group (PWG), which was wreaking havoc in some southern states, in his early years. He did not go to school, but he was a voracious reader, fluent in Telugu, Hindi, English and Odia, they added He was considered an expert in military tactics and guerrilla warfare, officials said.

After the CPI(Maoist) was formed in 2004 with the merger of multiple underground Communist groups, including PWG, he started rising through the ranks, and became a member of the outfit's central committee, they said.

It was Chalapathi who set up Maoist operations in Odisha's backward Kandhamal and Kalahandi districts, expanding the network.

However, his attempt to loot another police armoury in Kandhamal district was foiled by the police in 2011, officials said.

During his life in the forests, Chalapathi got close to Aruna alias Chaitanya Venkat Ravi, a 'deputy commander' of the Andhra Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee (AOBSZC). Subsequently, they got married.

He was a mystery for the security agencies but a selfie with Aruna led to his identification and a bounty of Rs 1 crore on his head. This selfie of the couple was found in an abandoned smartphone that was recovered in May 2016 following a gunfight between Maoists and security forces in Andhra Pradesh, officials said.

This also restricted his movement, and forced him to travel with a dozen cadres guarding him.

Fourteen Maoists, including Chalapathi, were killed in a gunfight with the security forces at the Chhattisgarh-Odisha border. Two of them were gunned down on Monday morning, police said.

Another round of gunfight began late Monday night and continued till the early hours of Tuesday, in which 12 more Maoists were killed, they said.