Forty-one members of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) surrendered before the Telangana Police on Friday, The Hindu reported.

This included six senior leaders and four state committee members, Director General of Police B Shivadhar Reddy said.

Reddy said that one of the prominent members who surrendered was 40-year-old Erragolla Ravi, alias Santhosh, from Arepally in Kamareddy, the Hindustan Times reported. Ravi was a state committee member and a divisional committee secretary who had been underground for 24 years, he added.

Kanikarapu Prabhanjan, 33, from Jannaram in Mancherial, who was a platoon committee member, was also among those who surrendered, the police chief said.

Several Maoist functionaries from Chhattisgarh also “chose to surrender before the Telangana police along with arms, following a call [in October] given by” the Telangana government, the newspaper quoted him as saying.

The surrendered Maoists handed over 24 firearms, including one INSAS LMG, three AK-47 rifles, and five SLR rifles, along with 733 live rounds of ammunition of various calibres, to the police, PTI reported.

The surrender represents a “significant erosion of organisational strength, morale and leadership credibility” of the banned organisation, the director general of police said.

Shivadhar Reddy added that members of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) were in a state of disarray as the party leadership had been arbitrarily deploying them to unfamiliar and distant areas without their consent, the Hindustan Times reported.

They were also often sent to regions where they lacked basic geographical knowledge and local support, he added.

This had resulted in serious mobility constraints and acute logistical difficulties, including shortages of essential day-to-day necessities, the director general of police said.

“Such conditions have caused growing frustration and hardship among the cadres, compelling many to disengage from the CPI (Maoist) organisation and choose to return to the mainstream of society,” he added.

Sustained pressure from security forces, along with non-cooperation and dilution of their logistic networks, had also resulted in restricted mobility and operational setbacks, Reddy said.

“Internal rifts, factionalism and leadership disputes within various formations of the CPI (Maoist) have also forced them to surrender,” the Hindustan Times quoted him as saying.

The surrendered Maoist functionaries carried a collective reward of Rs 1.4 crore, which would be disbursed to them as part of state and the central relief and rehabilitation policy, according to the newspaper.

The police chief said that an interim relief of Rs 25,000 each had also been given to them. Additional benefits would be extended as per the state rehabilitation and reintegration policy, he added.

Reddy said that 509 Communist Party of India (Maoist) cadres, including two central committee members and 11 state committee members, surrendered before the Telangana Police in 2025.

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

In October, the Union home ministry said that the number of districts across 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 Tuesday, the Union government told Parliament that 335 “Left-wing extremists” had been killed, while 2,167 others had surrendered in 2025.

Additionally, 942 Left-wing extremists had been arrested this year, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai told the Lok Sabha. Overall 1,841 such persons had been killed, more than 16,000 had been arrested, while 9,588 others had surrendered since 2014.

During the Centre’s anti-offensive this year, key Maoist leaders such as Madvi Hidma have been killed, while others such as Vikas Nagpure alias Anant and Mallojula Venugopal Rao, alias Bhupathi have surrendered.

A report by Malini Subramaniam for Scroll on Hidma’s killing noted that in the Andhra Pradesh village closest to where Hidma was killed, no one heard gunfire.

Subramaniam has also 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.