Sukma: The top Naxal commander Madkam Hidma have been gunned down by the security forces, in the Sukma area of Chhattisgarh, who is allegedly the mastermind behind the 2017 attack in the district that killed 25 CRPF personnel.
Hidma carried a reward of Rs 1 lakh for his head and is now likely to drastically alter the operational mechanism of Naxalites in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar area, and in the strongholds of Sukma, Dantewada, Bijapur, and Narayanpur.
Sukma superintendent of police Shalabh Sinha told media, “In an exchange of fire with our District Reserve Guard team near the forest of Birabhatti, we have recovered a naxal’s body identified as Madkam Hidma. He carried a reward of Rs one lakh. Two country made weapons recovered from the site.”
Hidma, an expert in guerilla warfare and a top commander of the organisation’s armed cadre, was commandeering the first battalion of Naxals which had been employed in the volatile zone of the Sukma-Bijapur region in south Bastar.
With the Naxals operating under a new chief commander, officials said the cadres will now focus on inflicting greater casualty/damage on security forces.
