An AK-47 rifle recovered in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district in May 2025, following the killing of CPI (Maoist) general secretary Basava Raju, has been traced to a Maoist attack carried out 15 years earlier in south Chhattisgarh, Chhattisgarh police said.
According to police, the weapon was looted during the April 2010 Tadmetla attack in the Chintagufa area of Sukma district, which was then part of Dantewada. Its recovery is among caches of hundreds of weapons reclaimed last year, some of which were in Maoist possession for more than a decade.
Weapon recoveries climb to highest level
Official data shows that security forces recovered 677 weapons from Maoist cadres in 2025, the highest number recorded in a single year so far. This marks a sharp rise after several years of relatively low recoveries.
Recoveries fell steadily from 80 weapons in 2021 to 61 in 2022 and 35 in 2023, before rebounding sharply to 286 in 2024 and rising further in 2025. Police said the increase reflects sustained intelligence-led operations and wider access to Maoist strongholds across south Chhattisgarh.
Most recovered during ops, others through surrender
The 2025 data shows that recoveries came through a mix of armed encounters, search operations and surrenders under the government’s rehabilitation policy. Of the 677 weapons recovered, 485 were seized during encounters and operations, while 192 were handed over by Maoist cadres who surrendered.
Police said the type of weapons recovered is significant. The 2025 recoveries include 42 AK-47 rifles, three light machine guns, 39 self-loading rifles, 47 INSAS rifles, seven carbines and 83 .303 rifles. In addition, five pistols and 451 other weapons were recovered, including BGL rifles, launchers, 12-bore and .315-bore firearms, and country-made pistols and revolvers.
Many weapons traced to attacks over past 20 years
Officials familiar with the development said a number of the weapons recovered in 2025 were originally looted during attacks on police stations and security camps over the last two decades. Police data shows that 516 automatic weapons were looted from security forces in the Bastar division between 2001 and 2024, of which only 111 had been recovered by August 2024.
Since 2001, at least 184 AK-47 rifles were looted, with 23 recovered. Of the 159 self-loading rifles and 168 INSAS rifles taken, recoveries stood at 40 and 37 respectively. The biggest single loss occurred in March 2007, when Maoists looted 145 weapons, including 125 automatic rifles, after killing 55 police personnel at Rani Bodali in Bijapur. Later incidents included the Burkapal attack in Sukma in 2017, when 35 weapons were looted, and two incidents in 2020 in which Maoists took away 32 weapons.
Weapon tracing has linked several rifles recovered in 2025 to attacks carried out years earlier in Sukma, Dantewada, Bijapur, Kanker and Narayanpur.
An SLR rifle recovered in Bijapur in January 2025 was traced to a March 2007 attack in the Kutru police station area. An INSAS rifle recovered in Dantewada in March 2025 was linked to a July 2009 ambush on the superintendent of police of Rajnandgaon district.
A .303 rifle recovered in Kanker in October 2025 following the surrender of Maoist cadre A Jagdish Mandawi was traced to an armoury looting incident in Koraput district of Odisha in February 2004.
An AK-47 rifle surrendered in Sukma in December 2025 by Maoist cadre ACM Ganga Kunjam was linked to the April 2017 Burkapal ambush in the Chintagufa area.
350 armed Maoists still active across 3 states
A senior intelligence officer posted in the Bastar region said that while the surge in weapon recoveries marks a major setback for Maoist operations, the armed movement has not been fully dismantled yet. He said intelligence assessments suggest that around 350 armed Maoist cadres are still active across parts of Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand, though their numbers, firepower and operational freedom have steadily declined. “They are increasingly on the defensive, facing shortages of weapons and safe movement corridors due to continuous area domination and intelligence-led operations,” the officer said.
Senior police officers said the rise in recoveries since late 2024 reflects a clear shift on the ground. For the first time in several years, recoveries of automatic weapons have exceeded losses. They attributed this to intelligence penetration, operational reach and sustained presence in core Maoist areas, particularly along the Bijapur–Sukma belt.
Sundarraj Pattlingam, inspector general of police, Bastar Range, said the scale of weapon recoveries in 2025 points to a weakened arms capacity of the Maoists. He said police and security forces are focused on ending Maoist violence and restoring stability and development in the Bastar region.