Madvi Hidma, the most wanted leader within the Maoist ranks, was killed in a gunfight with security forces in Andhra Pradesh’s Alluri Sitarama Raju district on Tuesday, The Indian Express reported.

Hidma alias Santosh, a central committee member of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) and leader of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee, was allegedly responsible for at least 26 lethal armed attacks.

Unidentified security officials told the newspaper that 51-year-old Hidma, his wife Madakam Raje and four others were fleeing from Chhattisgarh when they were surrounded by security forces in the Maredumilli forest in the district between 6 am and 7 am.

The other four Maoists – Deve, Lakmal, Malla and Kamlu – served as guards to Hidma, The Hindu reported.

“All six bodies, including those of Madvi and Raje, have been recovered from the spot of the encounter,” The Hindu quoted Andhra Pradesh Intelligence Chief Mahesh Chandra Laddha as saying. “They have been shifted to Rampachodavaram Area Hospital for post-mortem.”

Laddha added that a few Maoists also ran away from the place where the exchange of fire had taken place, adding that a search is on for them.

Security forces recovered two AK-47s, 15 electrical detonators and 150 non-electrical detonators, along with a few other weapons and ammunition, from the site during the operation, The Hindu reported.

Another security official told The Indian Express that inputs from the Andhra Pradesh Special Investigation Branch, along with other intelligence inputs, over the past few weeks had specifically indicated the movement of Maoists near the Andhra Pradesh-Chhattisgarh-Odisha border.

“…based on those inputs, we operated and got this success,” the officer added.

Hidma was killed by security forces in the gunfight on Tuesday 12 days before the November 30 deadline set by Union Home Minister Amit Shah to eliminate him, PTI reported.

“The Union home minister had set a deadline of March 31, 2026, for the eradication of the Maoist problem from the country,” an unidentified official told PTI. “At a security review meeting, Shah also told the top security officials engaged in anti-Naxal operations to eliminate Hidma before November 30…”

The Union government has repeatedly vowed to end Maoism by March 31, 2026.

Last month, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs said that the number of districts across different states affected by “Left-wing extremism” has come down to 11 from 18 in March.

In 2025, the number of “most affected” districts has also come down from six to three, it added. These are Bijapur, Sukma and Narayanpur in Chhattisgarh.

On October 16, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai also said that over the past 22 months, 477 suspected Maoists were killed, 2,110 had surrendered and 1,785 had been arrested in the state.

This year alone, 259 suspected Maoists have been killed by security forces in the state.

Malini Subramaniam has reported for Scroll that while many of those killed in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region in 2024 were declared by the police to be reward-carrying Maoists, several families dispute the claim. The families claim that the persons killed were civilians.