Pratap Reddy Ramachandra Reddy alias Chalapati (62), who was killed in an encounter with security forces near the Chattisgarh-Odisha border, had a swift rise through the Maoist ranks and orchestrated several high-profile attacks, including one that killed an MLA, officials in the security establishment who have followed his journey told The Indian Express.
Reddy hailed from Matempaipally village in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district. Security agencies in the state believe he is the mastermind of an attack on September 23, 2018, in Dumbriguda Mandal of Araku in which Kidari Sarveswara Rao, the TDP MLA from Araku Valley, and former TDP MLA Siveri Soma were shot dead. Chalapati’s wife Aruna allegedly led the group of Maoists who shot the two TDP leaders in a brazen attack that shook Andhra’s security forces.
As a teenager in the late 1970s, he was drawn to the ideology of the People’s War Group (PWG) of CPI (Marxist Leninist). In 1980, he dropped out of Intermediate and went to Srikakulam, where he joined the PWG.
A dossier prepared by the Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB), which gathered intelligence on Maoists, states that he worked in the Uddanam area of Srikakulam and was quickly elevated from party member to Divisional Committee Member (DCM). He has been known by various aliases, including Pratap, Ravi, and Jairam.
In December 2000, he was elevated as a special zonal committee member and inducted into the State Military Commission of Andhra Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee (AOB-SZC). Sources say he rose through the ranks because of his use of guerrilla warfare tactics and knowledge of military strategy.
The CPI (Maoist)’s Central Military Commission also leaned on him to plan high-profile assault operations and induct new recruits. Over three decades, he is alleged to have planned and led attacks in the border areas of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Chattisgarh.
In May 2016, after spending decades underground, the Andhra Pradesh police got their first lead on how Chalapathi looks when they found a selfie of him with his wife on a laptop belonging to a Maoist leader who was shot dead in an encounter in Visakhapatnam.
In fact, their romance had got him into trouble within the Maoist ranks. In 2010, he was suspended for a year for having a relationship with Aruna alias Chaitanya Venkat Ravi, a deputy commander in AOB-SZC. He eventually married her.
In 2012, he was demoted because a technical mistake by him led to the death of a cadre.
He was currently Secretary for the Odisha State Committee and carried a reward of Rs 1 crore on his head. Sources said he was suffering from chronic knee pain and obesity and had sought treatment secretly at various places on the Andhra-Odisha border.
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