GADCHIROLI: The once-unassailable Maoist headquarters in Abujmarh – spread across the rugged, forested hills straddling Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh – has fallen to security forces after 50 years of bloodshed. A fact conceded by Giridhar, a former commander of PLGA, during a conversation with TOI Tuesday.“Abujmarh is no longer an impregnable Red citadel. The liberated zones…
Vimala Chandra Sidam alias Tarakka was inducted into the Naxalism movement as a local squad member in 1986 and climbed ranks over 38 years to become a Dandkaranya special zonal committee member, participating in 35 encounters with security personnel. Tarakka, 62, carrying a Rs 25 lakh reward on her head, turned herself in before CM…
NAGPUR: In a New Year gift, Lloyds Metals and Energy Limited (LMEL), the sole company with an operational iron-ore mine and an upcoming steel complex in Maoist-affected Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, allotted the company’s shares, which closed at over Rs 1,260 in the stock market on Wednesday, for a nominal value of Rs 4 each…
NAGPUR: C-60 commando Kumod Atram, who was airlifted in a critical condition from the Abujmarh battlefield on Monday, says he has participated in 22 encounters over eight years. “Ab tak unchaalis,” he said when asked about the toll he had inflicted personally on the Maoists.Though down with gunshot injuries, he told TOI from his hospital…
NAGPUR: Captain Reena Varughese was a rookie pilot in 2009 when Maoists shot down a helicopter ferrying senior police and polling officials in Laheri on the fringes of Abujmarh, the ‘People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army’ (PLGA) headquarters straddling Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh.Fifteen years later, Varughese knew what she was getting into when her 13-seater Dauphin-N Pawan Hans…
GADCHIROLI: Splinters flew past Vikas Kumre, of Gardewara village, as multiple IEDs went off at noon along a booby-trapped stretch, just 6km off the Maoist headquarters of Abujmarh. This was during 2019 LS polls.Fast forward to 2024. Kumre considers himself lucky to be alive and witness the bustling electoral process at one of the 11…
