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Kolu alias Vikas alias Sukant Vinod Pada, (27), a resident of Narayanpur district in adjoining Chhattisgarh, and the woman Naxal, Raje alias Debo Jairam Used, (30), a native of Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district, turned themselves in before the Superintendent of Police recently, the police said in a release. The release said the Maharashtra government had announced a reward of Rs 12 lakh for their capture (Rs 8 lakh on Pada's head and Rs 4 lakh for information on Usendi). Pada joined Naxalism in September 2010 and later worked as a security guard of Maoists' Central Committee member named Sudhakar, the police said.
The release said nearly a dozen criminal offenses had been registered against him, including those related to murders, encounters, and robbery. He laid three ambushes in different places in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh against security forces and was also involved in multiple meetings in Odisha, the release stated. Two police personnel were killed in an ambush laid by the 27-year-old Naxal in 2020 in the Poyarkoti forest area in the Gadchiroli district, the police said. Usendi joined Naxal ranks in February 2011, and she was also involved in the 2020 ambush in the Poyarkoti forest area along with Pada, the release said. She was allegedly involved in the murder of a villager in 2019 besides four encounters and an arson incident, the police said.
Mistreatment of women by senior Maoists, discrimination between senior and junior cadres in providing basic facilities, challenging life in forests, the potential threat from wild beasts and security forces, and attractive terms of the Maharashtra government's surrender policy were among the reasons cited by the duo for giving up the path of violence, the release said. Due to intensified anti-Naxal operations conducted by the Gadchiroli police, 47 hardcore rebels have surrendered in the district since 2019. The release quoted SP Goyal saying that all necessary assistance will be provided to ultras who are willing to give up arms and join the national mainstream.
