Hyderabad, February 22 – Top Maoist leader Thippiri Tirupati, alias Devji, has reportedly surrendered to the Telangana Police.
This is considered the biggest blow to the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). Its general secretary, Devji, surrendered to the police in the Asifabad forests in the unified Adilabad district, sources said on Sunday.
Sixteen Maoists also laid down their arms along with Devji, who had been leading the outfit after the killing of Nambala Keshav Rao alias Basavaraju, who was killed in an encounter with security forces in Chhattisgarh in May last year.
The police have not yet confirmed the surrender. The surrendered Maoists are likely to be presented to the media on Monday.
Devji was one of the most wanted Maoist leaders. He hailed from the Peddapalli district of Telangana, and was a member of the Central Committee and the Police Bureau of the CPI (Maoist). He had a reward of Rs 25 lakh.
He was one of the 17 Maoist leaders from Telangana who held key positions in various committees of the CPI(Maoist) across the country.
Last month, the Director General of Police of Telangana, B. Shivadhar Reddy, appealed to them to surrender.
The DGP had assured them that they would be rehabilitated as promised by the government.
With the slogan “no more conflict, love your village”, the Telangana Police have appealed to them to give up their underground life and return to the mainstream.
The Telangana Police have been taking steps to encourage these Maoists to surrender.
In 2025, a total of 576 Maoists surrendered to the Telangana Police. This is an unprecedented event since the formation of the People's War (now CPI-Maoist) in 1980.
In November last year, some members of Devji’s protection team were among 50 Maoists arrested from five districts of neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. The arrests were made on November 18, hours after an encounter in the forests of the Alluri Sitharamaraju district in which top Maoist commander Madvi Hidma, his wife Raje and four others were killed.
A day after Hidma’s killing, seven Maoists, including explosives expert Metturi Joga Rao alias Tech Shankar and six others, were killed in the same district.
Civil liberties groups had claimed that Devji and another top Maoist, Malla Raji Reddy, are in the custody of the state police. A habeas corpus petition was also filed in the Andhra Pradesh High Court seeking a direction to the Andhra Pradesh Police to produce Devji and Raji Reddy in the court.
The Andhra Pradesh Police, however, told the High Court that Devji and Raji Reddy were not in their custody.