New Delhi/Sukma, April 18 -- Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday asked all underground Naxals to surrender as soon as possible and join the mainstream, saying the government is determined to free the country from the scourge of Naxalism before March 31, 2026.
"I appeal to the hiding Naxalites to lay down their arms as soon as possible and join the mainstream by adopting the surrender policy of the Modi government. We are determined to free the country from the scourge of Naxalism before 31 March 2026," Shah wrote on 'X'.
His remarks came amid the surrender by 33 Maoist cadres who laid down their arms before security personnel in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh on Friday. The mass surrenders occurred in two phases.
The initial batch of 22 Naxalites, of whom nine were women, surrendered to top officers of the police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) earlier in the day. During the course of the day, 11 more cadres, two of them women, also decided to leave militant life and surrendered to district authorities. Of them, 17 were in possession of collective cash rewards worth Rs 49 lakh, indicating the significance of their status in Maoist ranks.
Sukma Superintendent of Police Kiran Chavan has attributed the large-scale surrender to increasing disillusionment among the cadres with the violent and repressive Maoist ideology, particularly the atrocities perpetrated against local tribal communities.. He also attributed the impact of the state's 'Niyad Nellanar' scheme-a development outreach programme in far-off villages-and the recently launched Naxal Surrender and Rehabilitation Policy-2025.
Among the surrendered were senior members of the Maoist group. Muchaki Joga, who is a deputy commander in Company No. 1 of the PLGA's Maad division, and his wife Muchaki Jogi, who is an active cadre of the same unit, were both on the wanted list with rewards of Rs 8 lakh each. Area committee members like Kikid Deve and Manoj, alias Dudhi Budhra, were among the others, with rewards of Rs 5 lakh each. A number of other cadres carried bounties between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 50,000.
The surrender was successful due to a joint effort by the district police, District Reserve Guard (DRG), CRPF and its special unit CoBRA.
One of the key milestones in the campaign was the surrender of 11 Badesatti village Naxalites, who are under the police jurisdiction of Phulbagdi. With this, Badesatti has been officially declared a Maoist-free panchayat.
This success is directly related to the state's recently launched Elvad Panchayat Yojna under the 2025 policy, which guarantees development assistance of up to Rs 1 crore to any panchayat that facilitates the surrender of Maoists and officially declares itself insurgency-free.
After their surrender, each Naxalite was given a one-time assistance of Rs 50,000, followed by other benefits as part of the reintegration process of the state.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.