Express News Service By

VISAKHAPATNAM: A top leader of the banned CPI (Maoists), Kudumula Venkata Rao alias Ravi (40), died at a corporate hospital in Visakhapatnam city on Saturday after a brief illness.

The police confirmed the death of Ravi who headed the first company of the party’s Central Regional Committee, which carried out the military operations in the region. He carried a reward of Rs.20 lakh on his head.

Ravi, who was also a member of the Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee (AOBSZC), reportedly fell sick of acute jaundice.

The Maoist party members handed him over to some supporters who brought him from Chintapalli mandal to Visakhapatnam for treatment on Saturday morning.

However, Ravi was declared brought dead by the doctors at a corporate hospital here. People who brought Ravi to the city, took the body back to his native village Kommangi in Chintapalli mandal in the agency area. His last rites is expected to be performed on Sunday.

Ravi joined in the extremist group in 1998 as a militia member while pursuing his intermediate education at a junior college in Chintapalle. Soon he rose to the rank of a top leader in the party and became a military strategist.

Ravi was allegedly involved in many attacks on the police and damage of public property. It is learnt that he had worked mostly in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh and recently got shifted to the AOB region.

He was wanted in several offences reported from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha.

Sources said that Ravi was planning to surrender before police, but later changed his mind and continued in the party.

As part of their strategy to weaken the Maoist movement and encourage them to join the mainstream, the police tried to make Ravi’s parents convince him to give up the arms. The police also got a cataract surgery done on his father Sriramamurthy.

The police had information about Ravi suffering with severe jaundice for the past two months, superintendent of police Koya Praveen said.