Naxal who executed Sukma attack was trained by LTTE in ambush tactics

New Delhi, Apr 05: Preliminary investigations into the Sukma attack by the naxalites suggest that CPI (Maoist) leader Basava Raju led the execution.

Basava Raju alias Nambala Keshav Rao took over as the general secretary of the CPI (Maoist) and has been part of the naxal movement since the 1970s. The National Investigation Agency had announced a reward of Rs 1.5 million for any information on Raju who is 67 years old. He is an expert at using the AK-47 according to a Intelligence Bureau report of 2011.

In the year 1987, Basava Raju along with Ganapathy, Mallojoula Koteshwar Rao, Malla Raju Reddy among others underwent training by LTTE cadres in the forests of Bastar in ambush tactics.

In 1992, he was elected as member of the central committee of the erstwhile Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist People's War. In 2004 when the CPI (Maoist) was formed, Basava Raju was made the secretary of the central military commission.

In an article published in the party's People's War, Raju had said that if they could mobilise the peasantry on a vast scale and militantly into an armed agrarian revolution to completely solve the land issue in the country, they would acquire the most essential basic condition and preconditions to defeat all their enemies and complete the New Democratic Revolution.

Basava Raju's primary areas of operation have been in the forests of Chhattisgarh. He is also a member of the CPI (Maoist) central region bureau. He is a resident of the Jiyannapeta village in Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh. He goes by the aliases Krishna, Vijay, D Narasimha Reddy and Narasimha. He studied at the Regional Engineering College, Warrangal.