New Delhi: Maoist leader Vikas Nagpure alias Anant along with 10 other cadres surrendered before the Maharashtra Police, days after he appealed to the chief ministers of three states to halt anti-Maoist operations to ensure a conducive situation for laying down weapons.
Anant was a special zonal committee member of the Maharashtra–Madhya Pradesh–Chhattisgarh (MMC) zone and its spokesperson for the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).
The surrender took place before Nagpur Range Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Ankit Goyal and Gondia Superintendent of Police (SP) Gorakh Bhamare in Nagpur on Friday.
The Maharashtra government had declared a collective bounty of Rs 89 lakh on this group of Maoists.
Sources in the Maharashtra Police said that the group gave in after persuasion through channels between the state and the Maoists, shortly after Anant made his “inclination” to surrender.
In the first of the two letters released 22 November, Anant had sought time until 15 February to secure the surrender of Maoist cadres in the MMC trijunction. He had appealed to the state governments to halt operations and let his messages and calls for surrender reach all the underground cadres.
Anant had also hailed the surrender of former members of the Central Committee and the Politburo Mallojula Venugopal Rao alias Sonu and Pulluri Prasad Rao alias Chandranna, who surrendered before the Maharashtra and Telangana Police, respectively.
The SCZ member had announced that he would further reduce the surrender timeline by joining the mainstream on 1 January. He made the same appeals to the state governments in a fresh letter on 27 November.
The next day, the 40-year-old, along with 10 other Maoist cadres, surrendered.
“A backchannel communication was established immediately after his first letter appeared, which showed his willingness to surrender and lay down arms. He was a little reluctant to surrender with a few cadres, and that too so early before the public-declared deadline, but he was asked to surrender to pave the way for more surrender and return of the remaining cadres of the MMC zone to return to mainstream,” a Maharashtra Police officer told ThePrint.
The MMC zone is currently headed by a central committee member, Ramder alias Majjidev, who is suspected to be hiding somewhere in the Balaghat region of Madhya Pradesh.
Sources in the police say that Anant was influenced by the Maoist ideology early in his life when he was a college student pursuing intermediate education in Mumbai.
From Mumbai, he moved to Nagpur to pursue a Bachelor of Education at Dhanwate National College. From here, his journey into the mainstream Maoist movement began, and he went underground in Gadchiroli district, then a Maoist stronghold, sometime between 2008 and 2009.
Anant belongs to Karimnagar district in Telangana and was deployed in the MMC trijunction for nearly five years. Later, he was appointed spokesperson for the MMC special zone, a post he held until his surrender on Friday.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Also Read: Hidma gone, Sonu out & Devujee on the run—Maoists fight battle of survival as forces close in