In an encounter with the OCTOPUS force in the Maredumilli forests of Andhra Pradesh, top Maoist leader Madvi Hidma and his wife Madkam Raje (Rajakka), along with four other Naxalites, were killed.
SNPNEWS.IN News (Gurmail Kamboj): On 18 November 2025, Madvi Hidma, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), his wife Madkam Raje, and four other Naxalites were killed in a gunfight with security forces in the Maredumilli forests of Andhra Pradesh. Hidma, belonging to the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, is considered the mastermind behind several major Naxal attacks. He was famously known as the “Ghost of Bastar” because he had successfully evaded security forces for nearly 30 years.
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Born into a Gond tribal family in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, Hidma was the only tribal from Bastar to rise to the Central Committee of the Maoist party. He joined the Naxalites as a child and at the time of his death was the commander of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) Battalion No. 1.
Hidma first came into national spotlight after the 6 April 2010 attack on a CRPF convoy of the 62nd Battalion on the Chintagufa-Sukma road in Tadmetla (Dantewada district, Chhattisgarh). In that 5–6 hour siege, 76 CRPF personnel were martyred and their weapons and ammunition looted. The then Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram called the incident “horrific”. After this attack, the government intensified “Operation Green Hunt” and the bounty on Hidma’s head was increased from ₹15 lakh to ₹40 lakh.
Under Hidma’s leadership, on 25 May 2013, a deadly attack was carried out in the Darbha (Jiram) Valley of Bastar, Chhattisgarh, targeting the Congress party’s top political leadership. In this ambush on the Sukma-Jagdalpur road, 19 Congress leaders and workers and 8 CRPF personnel were killed while over 30 others were injured. After this attack, his name was added to the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) Most Wanted list and the bounty was raised to ₹45 lakh.
Apart from these, Hidma was accused of orchestrating more than 26 major Naxal operations. For the last three decades, he had been a major headache for security forces. The encounter with Hidma and his wife Madkam Raje took place on the Chhattisgarh-Andhra Pradesh border. A combined bounty of ₹1.80 crore was placed on the couple, and they were considered a serious threat to the region’s security.