Odisha’s Koraput Police arrested Communist Party of India (Maoist) leader Kunjam Hidma alias Mohan in a special operation by the district police and Odisha’s specialised district voluntary force (DVF) constabulary unit Thursday.
Hidma, an area committee member, was arrested from the Petguda jungle under Boipariguda police limit, with the police seizing a huge cache of arms and ammunition — including an AK-47 and 35 rounds of bullets. According to police sources, Hidma was part of a party sent to recce the area and give a safe passage to Maoist leader Suresh, a state zonal committee member, from Odisha to Andhra Pradesh. Hidma is working under Suresh.
Significantly, Madvi Hidma, the de facto military chief of the CPI (Maoist) in Chhattisgarh who commands Battalion 1 of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army, has yet to be arrested.
According to Koraput SP Rohit Varma, a special operation was launched Wednesday night after security forces received credible intelligence inputs on the movement of a group of banned (Maoist) cadres in the forest area near village Petguda.
“The DVF team noticed a group of Maoists camping at the hill on Thursday early morning. As the team moved to surround it, the Maoists, on being alerted, opened fire at the DVF team and fled into the jungle. In response, the team exercised controlled fire in self-defence. During the subsequent search, one Maoist cadre was apprehended while attempting to hide in the nearby bushes,” said Verma.
A native of Janaguda under Usur police limit in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district, Kunjam joined the Maoist movement in 2007 at the age of 14. He was initially inducted into the Bal Sangham and Jana Natya Mandali (JNM), the cultural wing of the Maoists with which he was associated till 2013, police sources said.
Between 2013 and 2015, Kunjam worked as a party member under the Usur Local Operational Squad (LOS) – the local unit of the outfit — and received military training, during which he was issued a single-shot rifle. In 2016, he started operating in AOB (Andhra Odisha Border) platoon and was promoted to the rank of area committee member in 2019 and had by now progressed to using a self-loading rifle (SLR).
Hidma served in a military platoon under Suresh, operating in the Boipariguda area of Koraput district — the area that marks the border between Odisha’s Malkangiri district and the Pedabailu region in Andhra Pradesh’s Alluri Sitharama Raju (ASR) district. He was involved in a number of Maoist attacks in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh since 2021.
Police said Hidma was involved in several encounters with police and had Maoist-related cases against him in Odisha’s Koraput and Malkangiri districts as well as in Chhattisgarh.
