New Delhi, May 21 -- In what is being hailed as a landmark achievement in India's decades-long battle against Naxalism, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday announced that security forces have successfully neutralised 27 Naxals, including the topmost CPI-Maoist leader, Nambala Keshav Rao, also known as Basavaraju.

Shah also said this is the first time in three decades of India's fight against Naxalism that a general secretary-ranked leader has been neutralised by the security forces.

Basavaraju, the General Secretary of the banned CPI-Maoist, was regarded as the ideological and operational backbone of the Naxal movement, his elimination marks the first time in three decades that a leader of such a high rank has been taken down by ...