HYDERABAD, India, 2 July 2007 — Police killed top Maoist leader Chettiraja Papaiah alias Somanna early yesterday in a shootout in the Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh.
Somanna was carrying a reward of one million rupees on his head. His death is being viewed as a major jolt to the Maoists in the north Telangana region.
An AK47 rifle, one carbine, a pistol and other ammunition were recovered from the encounter site. Police said they were combing the Medaram woods, the scene of the shootout, for other Maoists who escaped.
Somanna, a native of Tekumatla village in Chityal mandal, had been on the run for over two decades. A member of the CPI-Maoist North Telangana Special Zonal Committee Secretariat, 48-year-old Somanna had 50 cases registered against him in Warangal, Khammam, Nizamabad and Karimnagar districts.
Somanna’s wife, Prameela alias Suguna, is also a member of the Maoist party. She surrendered to the police in 2003, but escaped from police custody a year later.
The police success in the southern Indian state was tempered by the killings of seven policemen by Maoists in the eastern state of Bihar on Saturday. The policemen were among nine people killed when a large number of Maoists attacked a police station and a smaller police post in rural Bihar, shooting some of the victims after they surrendered.
In near simultaneous attacks, a group of 200 men in green fatigues and armed with a variety of weapons surrounded the police station at Rajpur in Rohtas district, about 150 km from the state capital Patna, while another 100 rebels targeted the police post in Baghela, just three km away. There were eight policemen at the Rajpur police station, and reports from the area said they put up some resistance before surrendering to the guerrillas. But the attackers shot them, killing four policemen and seriously injuring four more.
— Additional input from agencies
