Key Maoist military strategist among surrendered insurgents
Top Maoist leader Takkallapalli Vasudeva Rao, alias Rupesh, known for guerrilla warfare tactics, has surrendered, marking a potential shift in the insurgency
Takkallapalli Vasudeva Rao alias Aashanna alias Rupesh (60), a top leader of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), was the key strategist behind many of the party’s high-profile insurgent attacks, and one of the principal architects behind the armed struggle, people familiar with the movement said on Friday.
“If Mallojula Venugopal Rao alias Bhupathi alias Sonu, who laid down arms a couple of days ago, was the intellectual face of the CPI (Maoist), Rupesh was the military strategist, a master tactician in guerrilla warfare and an explosives expert,” a former IPS officer, who dealt with the Maoist movement in Telangana, said. Sonu along with 61 cadres and 10 senior party leaders surrendered before the Maharashtra Police earlier this week.
Born in Narsingapur village in Mulugu district of present-day Telangana, Rupesh was born into a middle-class Velama family. His political radicalisation began at Kakatiya University, where he emerged as a student leader of the Radical Students Union (RSU) — an organisation ideologically aligned with the CPI (Marxist-Leninst) People’s War. Drawn into the left-wing movement in the early 1980s, he went underground at the age of 25, beginning a long clandestine career that would place him at the core of Maoist insurgency across central India.
By the late 1990s, Rao, who operated with the names of Ashanna and Rupesh, had become the head of the CPI (ML) PW’s action team in Hyderabad, overseeing several high-impact urban operations. After the formation of CPI (Maoist) in 2004, he was elevated to the central committee of the party.
Rupesh was made in-charge of the North-West Sub-Zonal Committee of Dandakaranya, where he trained and directed guerrilla units operating in Telangana, Maharashtra, and Chhattisgarh. He ran a military training camp in Dandakaranya, shaping the Maoist group’s modern operational strategy. He also led the party’s military intelligence wing. His expertise in landmine warfare and intelligence gathering made him a pivotal figure in sustaining the insurgency even during its decline.
According to intelligence officials, some of the attacks spearheaded by Rupesh, include the assassination of IPS officer KS Umesh Chandra in Hyderabad in 1999, the killing of former Andhra Pradesh minister A Madhava Reddy at Ghatkesar near Hyderabad in 2000, and a landmine explosion at Gadchiroli in 2019 that killed 15 police officers.
They also suspect Rupesh was behind the failed assassination attempt on the then Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu at Alipiri in Tirupati in 2003, and two separate assassination attempts on former chief minister N Janardhan Reddy in 2003 and 2007.
His leadership extended beyond field operations — he is believed to have directed guerrilla warfare logistics from deep within the Abujhmad forests in Chhattisgarh, coordinating cross-border insurgent activities, intelligence officials said.
Rupesh’s family, too, has long been entwined with the Maoist movement. His sister Narla Sri Vidya (57), known by aliases Karuna, Kiranamma, and Rupi, was arrested by Cyberabad police from a private hospital in Hafeezpet on July 24. Police stated that she had been underground since 1992 and was remanded to judicial custody after her arrest.
Her brother, Narla Ravi Sharma, a former CPI (Maoist) central committee member heading the Jharkhand division, was arrested in 2009. After serving over five years in prison, Sharma renounced the armed struggle but remains a vocal sympathiser of the Maoist ideology.
Earlier this year, Rupesh was among several senior party leaders who proposed a ceasefire and offered a peace dialogue with the government after security forces killed 31 Maoists at Karregutta hills near the Chhattisgarh-Telangana border as part of Operation Black Forest. Security officials view this as a possible shift in Maoist strategy amid mounting internal divisions and declining cadre strength.
Rupesh’s surrender on Friday marks a decisive moment in the long battle between the State and the Maoist movement, potentially signalling a new chapter in the decades-old conflict.
