May 27, 2025
1 Committee For the Release of Political Prisoners
(West Bengal)
2 Statement: CPI-ML Red Star
3 FACAM
Press Statement
24 May 2025
Committee For the Release of Political Prisoners
(West Bengal)
Resist Operation Kagar!
Condemn the Indian State’s War on Its People!
On 21 May 2025, the Indian State killed Nambala Keshava Rao—known to the people as Comrade Basavraj—the General Secretary of CPI (Maoist), along with 26 of his comrades, in the forests of Abujhmad. This was not an encounter. It was a state-sanctioned execution carried out under the military offensive dubbed ‘Operation Black Forest’, part of the broader counterinsurgency campaign called Operation Kagar. This is not about national security. This is about silencing resistance and clearing the way for corporate loot—a war to crush decades of people’s struggle by March 2026.
What is the “War on Maoism” really about?
Let us be clear: it is not a war on “extremism” or “terrorism”. It is a war on Adivasis, a war on India’s most oppressed and dispossessed communities, and a war on the dream of justice, dignity, and self-rule. Behind the state’s talk of “development” and “security” lies a far more brutal reality—military occupation, corporate greed, and Hindutva authoritarianism.
A major shift in this war was planned at the ‘Chintan Shivir’ held in Surajkund in 2023, where top officials, paramilitary commanders, and Union ministers—under the direction of the Modi government—redrew the roadmap for repression. Unlike earlier operations like Green Hunt and SAMADHAN, which still spoke the language of development, Surajkund made the regime’s intent crystal clear: to eliminate the Maoist movement and crush Adivasi resistance to pave the way for mining and infrastructure giants like Adani, Vedanta, Tata, and Jindal.
Operation Kagar is not a security measure—it is a genocidal plan, a blueprint for forced displacement and resource capture. Bastar—rich in minerals like iron ore, bauxite, and uranium—is also home to some of the most resilient communities and revolutionary traditions in India. The state wants the land, but not the people. It cares for the profits, but not the lives. That is why it is trying to wipe out not just a political movement, but an entire way of life rooted in the forest, community, and collective survival.
What has the state done?
On the one hand, it admits that the movement is rooted in the socio-economic reality of the country. On the other hand, it takes up an extremely militaristic approach and continues to intensify the repression.
After the gruesome murder of Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar, also known as Azad, who was the spokesperson of CPI (Maoist), the Supreme Court remarked that the “republic cannot kill its own children”. We must not forget that Azad was in the middle of facilitating peace talks between his party and the Indian state when he was brutally murdered. Fifteen years later, when the Maoist party has been actively advocating for peace talks and a ceasefire, the state shamelessly manifests its bloodthirst once again by killing the party’s General Secretary and around another 450 of our fellow citizens. Is the “world’s largest democratic republic” too fond of killing its children?
Of the 27 Maoist guerrillas killed, 12 were women. These women remind us that daughters of Bastar and women from wherever the Indian state for long has been dehumanising and oppressing them through systemic sexual violence during “search operations”, custodial torture, and rape join the Maoist movement in resistance.
Thus, the killing of these women is not just a military act—it is a continuation of the everyday violence inflicted upon women, especially those who dare to resist.
Just two days after the killing of Basavraj, the Ministry of Environment sanctioned the cutting of 1.23 lakh trees in Gadchiroli for an iron ore plant to be set up by Lloyd Metals and Energy Ltd. Preserving forests is not only an issue of preserving the livelihood and culture of the tribals, it is also related to the larger question of the right of every citizen of this country to have a pollution-free atmosphere necessary for the healthy living of the generations to come.
Is this the “Vikas” (development) we are supposed to celebrate? Or is it ecocide in the service of profit?
The right to life and dignity is guaranteed under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. This includes the right to be treated with dignity even after death. Then why has the government refused to return Basavraj’s body to his family in Andhra Pradesh? What is it afraid of? What kind of Republic denies even the dead their last rites?
Why has the Supreme Court not spoken? What is the National Human Rights Commission doing, if not intervening in such grave violations? Why has there been no independent judicial inquiry into these killings, which now number over 450 deaths under Operation Kagar, many of them unarmed villagers and forest dwellers?
This silence is not accidental—it is by design. This is the face of “Amrit Kaal”, where the apex leaders of Parliament laugh and cheer over the bloodshed of fellow citizens.
This is not a war on extremism—this is state violence, corporate land grabs, and genocide. This is a civil war being waged against the people of Bastar, against their right to live with dignity, and against any idea of a ‘New India’ free from the clutches of feudal vestiges and imperialist exploitation.
We demand:
- An immediate halt to Operation Kagar and the withdrawal of armed and paramilitary forces from Adivasi areas.
- The central and state governments must stop all violence against the people and agree to engage in democratic ‘peace talks’ with the CPI (Maoist) party.
- A transparent, time-bound judicial inquiry into all so-called “encounter killings” by the Indian State.
- Full recognition of Adivasi self-determination, as guaranteed under the Constitution, and an end to illegal corporate land takeovers.
We call on all democratic-minded people and organisations:
Do not stay silent. This is not about law and order—it is about people’s lives. This is a battle between corporate greed and people’s rights, between submission to authoritarian control and human dignity. We must take a stand. To stay silent now is to be complicit. To speak out is to choose the correct side of history.
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Statement: CPI-ML Red Star
We condemn the killing of more than 25 Maoists including Maoist Party General Secretary Nambala Kesavarao Basavaraju!
— Kollipara Venkateswara Rao, CPI (ML) State Secretary Andhra Pradesh Committee. ,
Union Home Minister Amit Shah has repeatedly issued announcements to eliminate the Maoist Party in the name of Operation Kagaru. In the last two years, the government has killed more than 300 tribal people in Chhattisgarh state in the name of Maoist activists.
The Narendra Modi government, which is in power at the Centre, is working to hand over the country’s natural resources such as aluminum, baxite, iron ore, found in forest areas of Chhattisgarh state and other places, to corporates, investors and imperialists.
On February 8, the CPI (Maoist) party top leadership issued a statement calling for peace talks with the central government. Several political parties across the country and 10 leftist parties in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and other states are repeatedly appealing to the government to stop the human killings in the name of Kagar in the state of Chhattisgarh.
However, for the past few months, the Indian government has been carrying out a massacre in the forests of central India under the name of “Operation Kagar”. From this morning, more than 25 people including Maoist party chief secretary Nambala Keshavarao alias Basava Raju have been killed in the firing carried out by government forces in Abuzmad in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh state. The Maoist party has repeatedly requested the central government for peace talks. The central government is urging intellectuals and democrats to halt Operation Kagar and hold peace talks with Maoists, yet the BJP government of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah is not taking action. Besides, it escalated the carnage. Citizens of this country are being killed everyday. Government launches Operation Cager to drive out tribes from forests and loot forest resources for corporate companies. Operation Cager must be stopped immediately and forces must be withdrawn. Supreme Court should conduct a legal enquiry with sitting judges on these murders committed by the government. CPI(M-L) Red Star State Committee extends its revolutionary condolences to Nambala Keshavarao and other Maoist party members who died in a fake encounter today. We request that the people and Democrats condemn this massacre being committed by the government.
Sincerely,
Kollipara Venkateswara Rao
The secretary,
CPI (M-L) RED STAR
Andhra Pradesh State Committee,
21-05-2025.
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Statement: FORUM AGAINST CORPORATIZATION AND MILITARIZATION (FACAM)
CONDEMN THE COLD BLOODED KILLING OF NAMBALA KESHAVA RAO @BASAVARAJ,GENERAL SECRETARY OF CPI (MAOIST) AND 26 REBELS, WHILE MAOISTS OBSERVE UNILATERAL CEASEFIRE
On May 21, 2025, we are learning of the disturbing news of massacre of 27 Maoist rebels including the General Secretary of CPI (Maoist) in an extermination campaign carried out in the name of “anti-naxal” operation in Abujhmad forest of Narayanpur, Bastar (Chhattisgarh).
While the state claims of killing the rebels and the top leader in a gun fight in Abujhmad, we are also receiving conflicting news being circulated in certain Telugu media portals that Basavaraj was captured in Odisha while undergoing treatment, brought to Abujhmad and shot in cold-blood. The uncertainty and mystery of what unfolded that led to the death of the top most leader of the Maoists, especially in light of this conflicting news, necessitates a high level enquiry by a coalition of democratic rights groups headed by a retired Supreme Court Judge.
This massacre is being hailed as a big success of the Indian State’s military might and a mockery is being made of genuine calls of the Citizens and the CPI (Maoist) to declare a ceasefire and initiate peace talks. We term the killing of Basavraj and his companions in Abujhmad forest a massacre carried out under an extermination campaign because they were encircled and killed, when there is call for peace. It is an extermination campaign aimed at massacre of the country’s children because they were encircled and killed, when they could have been arrested as per the rule of law, the facade of which is being shredded to pieces time and again in the blood soaked forests of Bastar and Saranda.
This massacre of Topmost Maoist leader Basavaraj and his comrades effectively brings the possibility of a ceasefire and peace talks to an end because of the state’s insensitivity towards a viable resolution as well as it’s genocidal intent to facilitate corporate plunder. We ask the government of Chhattisgarh, why is it not announcing a ceasefire and engaging in peace talks when it shamelessly stands on the dead bodies of our fellow countrymen and calls for peace of a graveyard, stating that it doesn’t want to fire a single bullet when in reality, it unleashes war on the most exploited and oppressed, firing mortar shells and dropping bombs from helicopters and Israeli manufactured drones.We ask the Brahmanical Hindutva Fascist Home Minister Vijay Sharma whether he has forgotten the state’s own assessment of Bandyopadhyay committee report that Maoist movement is rooted in socio-economic and political injustices inherent in the system and cannot be solely tackled militarily.
These continuing murderous operations, from massacre of Maoists leadership and cadres as well as unarmed adivasi people at Gariaband, Saraikela, Karregutta, and now in Abujhmad Aimed at spearheading the monstrous machines of corporate plunder of resources that displaces and disinherits Adivasipeople of their livelihood and culture, will sharpen the contradictions that gave rise to the Maoist movement in the first place and the bloodshed will continue as long as the questions are not resolved. We ask the Indian state, is this the method of resolution it has chosen for the plight of the country’s most exploited people? Does it want to solve the question by exterminating the people?
The continuous bloody operations and the piling dead bodies itself give the answer to these questions. But we make it clear that if the Indian State only intends to unleash a war, then it must call it as such and not shamelessly shroud its war as an attempt to establish “law and order”. It must declare that it is engaged in a civil war with its own people and abide by Geneva Convention pertaining to Non-International Armed Conflict (NIAC) which necessitates ensuring arrests over killing, prohibits torture and taking hostages as well as mistreatment of dead bodies as outrages to personal dignity. The current extermination campaign called “Black Forest” is actually a synonym for the dark future it brings for the people of Bastar.
This extermination campaign being carried out under genocidal Operation Kagaar is a policy in the interest of Foreign and domestic corporates like Adani, Essar, Arcelor Mittal, Jindal, Llyod, POSCO etc who are getting fatter by the day, drinking blood of our people and filling their coffers by selling the country’s wealth after acquiring it at dirt’s cost. We ask in whose interest is this corporate plunder of resources that is termed as development and becomes a justification for the massacre of almost 500 of our brothers and sisters in just 1.5 years, in the most brutal way. Who does this model of development benefit when it hasn’t been able to bring basic amenities like education, housing, healthcare, employment and a dignified life for the people of the region where this so-called development is being carried out as well as for the rest of the people of the country.
It is not a development model for the people but for the greedy corporates that destroy people’s lives and aims to exterminate all that stands in its way an alternate model of development of the people, the resistance of the people, their culture and at the end, the very people itself. This must be fought back in the most organised and united fashion by all the progressive democratic and justice loving people. Forum Against Corporatization and Militarization strongly condemns the killing of Nambala Keshav Rao alias Basavaraj,General Secretary of CPI (Maoist) and 26 of his comrades in Abujmad. We see this killing as a shameless affront to the call for ceasefire and peace talks made by the broad section of concerned citizens, the people of Bastar and the CPI (Maoist).
We urge all the democratic, progressive, justice loving and patriotic forces to condemn this extermination campaign aimed at handing over the country’s resources to foreign plunderers and their domestic allies. We also urge all such forces to hold protest demonstrations/rallies/public meetings to hold the government accountable for these murders and ensure the declaration of a ceasefire towards initiation of peace talks.
FORUM AGAINST CORPORATIZATION AND MILITARIZATION (FACAM) CONTACT- 8367557271, 9289543542
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Statement: Coordination Committee for Peace
Condemn the killing of over 27 armed rebels including the General Secretary of the CPI (Maoist) in Narayanpur! Enforce ceasefire and peace talks between the government and CPI (Maoist)! On May 21st, as per news reports, over 27 armed rebels of the CPI (Maoist) have been killed in an encounter led by the District Reserve Guard (DRG), a force of local youth and surrendered Maoists, formed in contravention with Supreme Court’s order of not inducting surrendered naxalites in anti-naxal operations.
In the present operation, besides the alleged death of 27 Maoists, one DRG was killed and several were injured. The aspect highlighted across the media is the killing of the General Secretary of the CPI (Maoist) Basavaraj alias Nambala Keshava Rao. This killing is hailed by the media and the state as a major setback for the Maoists and a success of the State’s military might, projected as the viable approach to the Maoist movement, day by day, making a mockery of call for peace talks. This operation comes in the wake of another operation on the Karregutta Hills of Chhattisgarh subsequently named Operation Black Forest.
Discrepancies regarding the number of armed rebels versus unarmed villagers, the deliberate delay in handing over bodies resulting in despoliation and decay and reports of cross-firing between the Greyhounds and CRPF raised more questions. The lack of coordination between the political leadership of the Chhattisgarh government at the topmost level was exposed with contradictory statements. The Coordination Committee for Peace (CCP) has raised these questions and demanded an impartial inquiry into the operation that resulted in the death of 31 persons, several of whom are suspected to be villagers and some even minors.
While the media is celebrating this operation as a success, several contradictory numbers of the dead are emerging and the final count of dead combatants is yet to be established. Various media houses have speculated the reward money for Basavaraj’s killing ranging from 1 to 20 crore. In this melee, the question of ceasefire and peace talks between the government and the CPI (Maoist) is absent. Just days ago, the deputy Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh reiterated the need for peace talks but continuing operations contradict his assertions. While celebrating this death as a blow to the Maoists, there appears to be no effort at initiating ceasefire and peace talks, revealing a lack of sincerity and military approach in the government’s stand. If the government is determined to continue these operations using the paramilitary forces with their advanced weaponry, it is imperative the government acknowledge this as a civil war and the systematic indiscriminate killing of persons, whoever they may be is an act of war. This necessitates that the Government of India adhere to the Geneva Conventions of Non-International Armed Conflict (NIAC), including efforts to ensure arrests over killings, prohibition of torture, taking of hostages, and outrages of personal dignity including respect for the bodies of the dead.
The Home Minister Amit Shah’s plan to eliminate Maoists by March 2026 appears to solely include military action, that is killing of people. The issues raised by the Maoists, the political, social and economic conditions that have given rise to a prolonged armed conflict and the questions that this continues to raise about the exploitation of the most marginalised people of central India and elsewhere remain unanswered. It is worth asking if this State policy of extermination will eliminate the grievances of the people or even effectively end the political ideas behind the prolonged armed movement. In this scenario, those of us determined to focus on lives find ourselves demanding a different approach, one that brings the armed forces on to the negotiating table.
The Coordination Committee for Peace (CCP) condemns these senseless killings including that of the General Secretary of the CPI (Maoist), at a time when the government should respond to Maoist’s unilateral ceasefire and declare a ceasefire from its end to initiate peace talks. This militaristic approach aimed at extermination of top leaders and cadres of the CPI (Maoist) as well as the adivasi people, negates the possibility of peace by further antagonising the Maoists rebels who have come forward in good faith and announced a unilateral ceasefire towards initiation of peace talks. In line with international humanitarian principles, we urgently call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire from the Govt of India to reciprocate the Maoists unilateral declaration of a ceasefire; the immediate suspension of Operation Kagar; and the establishment of a dialogue mechanism for peace talks with the CPI (Maoist).
