Telangana: Senior Maoist leader Kakarala Samatha surrenders before police
Hyderabad, Aug 10 (TNT): Senior underground CPI (Maoist) leader and State Committee Member Kakarala Samatha, alias Madhavi, Durga, Shakeela and Mase, surrendered before Telangana Director General of Police C V Anand on Monday, police said.
The police described the surrender of Samatha as another significant setback to the CPI (Maoist) and said the developments indicated that the organisation was nearing collapse.
According to the police, Samatha, a native of Aryapuram Street in Rajahmundry, had been associated with the Maoist movement for several decades and handled various organisational responsibilities.
She was later shifted to the South Regional Bureau’s urban area, where she was entrusted with women’s issues and intelligence-propaganda activities.
Samatha joined the CPI (ML) People’s War movement in 1985 after discontinuing her Intermediate studies in Chennai.
She subsequently served as an Area Committee Member, Divisional Committee Member and State Committee Member in different organisational areas before being assigned to urban operations.
The police release said Samatha’s father Kakarala Satyanarayana was a film actor who acted in around 300 movies, while her mother Suryakantham died in 2021.
Her elder sister Kakarala Sunitha alias Badri, a former DK South Zonal Committee Member, surrendered before the Rachakonda Police Commissioner in August last year.
According to the release, Samatha married former State Committee Member and Hyderabad City Committee Secretary Mekala Damodar Reddy alias Madhanna in 1991. He was killed in an exchange of fire in the Medak forest area in 1997.
She later married former Central Committee Member and Chief of Military Intelligence Patel Sudhakar Reddy alias Suryam, who was killed in an exchange of fire near Warangal in 2009.
Under the Telangana government’s surrender and rehabilitation policy, Samatha will receive ₹20 lakh, while an interim relief of ₹25,000 has already been provided. Further rehabilitation benefits will be extended as per the policy, police said.
Healthcare and other rehabilitation benefits are also being provided to surrendered Maoist cadres in Telangana irrespective of their native place, the police said.
The surrender comes amid a rise in Maoist cadres giving up underground activities in Telangana.
According to police data, 265 CPI (Maoist) cadres surrendered in the state during 2026 so far, including three Central Committee Members, 12 State Committee Members, one Regional Committee Member, 24 Divisional Committee-level members, 94 Area Committee-level members and 131 party members.
Police also said 238 firearms were recovered in Telangana during 2026 in connection with surrender and anti-Maoist operations.
The police said only three active underground cadres from Telangana were currently operating in different Maoist formations outside the state and appealed to them to give up armed struggle and join the mainstream to avail themselves of the state’s surrender and rehabilitation benefits.
TNT TS
