Senior Maoist cadre arrested in Hyderabad

DGP Anjani Kumar said that Deepak had health issues and left Western Ghats for getting medical treatment in January this year. In March he recovered and has been planning to go to Maad of Chhattisgarh for attending meeting and to meet Baswaraj, General Secretary, CPI Maoist, Ganapathi, CCM and other leaders.

Hyderabad: With specific inputs from the Telangana Intelligence Department, the Cyberabad police nabbed Sanjoy Deepak Rao, a most wanted Maoist leader and Central Committee Member of CPI (Maoist) near Malaysian Township, Kukatpally on Friday.

A firearm with six live rounds, a laptop, cash of Rs.47, 250 and other material were seized from him.

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The Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) has been tracking this high profile target for long time. He is wanted by the Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu police. The Maharashtra government had earlier announced a reward of Rs.25 lakh for any information leading to his arrest.

Sanjoy Deepak Rao, a native of Thane in Maharashtra holds an engineering degree from Regional Engineering College (REC) now NIT, Jammu and Kashmir in 1984.

Attracted towards Left Wing Extremist (LWE) ideology, after being influenced by his father, Deepak Rao supported the separatist movement of Kashmir people.

Deepak Rao initially worked in CPI ML CRC group and CPI ML Rawoof group. In 1999, he along with Konath Muralidharan alias Ajith, Ex-CCM, formed CPI ML Naxalbari Group. Subsequently, he was made in-charge of Maharashtra CPI ML Naxalbari group.

In 2000, he was arrested by Maharashtra police and after being released from prison, he went underground in 2002 and transferred to Raidurg area of Ananthapur district to start CPI ML Naxalbari activities.

He married Saraswavthi alias Madhavi, a native of Ananthapur district, who is also CPI (M) cadre in 2007. In 2014, K. Muralidharan went to Maad area (Chattisgarh) and CPI ML Naxalbari was merged in CPI Maoist. As a result, K. Muralidharan and Deepak were taken as Central Committee Members.

After the arrest of BG.Krishnamurthy, Western Ghats Special Zonal Committee Secretary in November 2021, Deepak was elected as Secretary of Western Ghats Special Zonal committee. Since then he has been working in tri Junction, Western Ghats and organizing CPI Maoist activities.

DGP Anjani Kumar said that Deepak had health issues and left Western Ghats for getting medical treatment in January this year. In March he recovered and has been planning to go to Maad of Chhattisgarh for attending meeting and to meet Baswaraj, General Secretary, CPI Maoist, Ganapathi, CCM and other leaders.

“He used to visit his friends at Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad taking utmost precautions while moving on party work. He came to the city few days ago while proceeding to Chhattisgarh, when he was arrested,” Anjani Kumar said.

He will be taken to police custody and interrogated for eliciting his involvement in various unlawful activities, his area of operation and his links with the activists in front and mass organisations in Telangana, the DGP added.