India, Oct. 15 -- Senior Maoist leader and CPI (Maoist) politburo member, Mallojula Venugopal alias Bhupathi, 69, the first senior Naxal leader to call for abandoning the armed struggle, surrendered before the Maharashtra's Gadchiroli police on Monday night along with 10 senior party leaders and 61-armed cadre, at Laheri, on the fringes of Abujhmad in Chhattisgarh.

According to Gadchiroli police, Venugopal and his associates will formally lay down their arms before Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday, October 16, nine months after his wife surrendered before Fadnavis in Gadchiroli.

"He was in negotiation with Maharashtra police for the last few days to negotiate the terms and conditions of the surrender with cadres,...