The last rites of top Maoist leader Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraju, and seven other Maoist cadres, who were gunned down in Chhattisgarh’s Abujhmad area on May 21, were performed in the State’s Narayanpur district on Monday (May 26, 2025), the police said.
The funerals were held in Chhattisgarh despite the family of Basavaraju, 70, demanding that the bodies of the deceased be handed over to them, and the funeral be held in Basavaraju’s native place, Jiyyannapet in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh. The family had earlier alleged that the Chhattisgarh Police had refused to hand over Basavaraju’s body to them.
The police, however, claimed that there had been “no legal claimant” for the seven bodies, including that of Basavaraju, and that all basic and humanitarian courtesy had been extended in cremating the “disowned and unclaimed Naxal dead bodies by following due legal procedures”.
“Whereas there was no clear legal claimant for the remaining 07 Naxal Dead bodies including that of Top Ranked Naxal cadre CPI Maoist General Secretary Basavaraju. All those 08 naxal Dead bodies (including that dead body of Maoist cadre Kosi @ Hungi, which was cremated by the family members) were cremated in Narayanpur as per the legal procedure with due order from the executive magistrate,” a police statement said.
According to the police, of the 27 bodies, 20 were handed over to family members after verifying the claims. However, the family members of one of them — Kosi alias Hungi — requested the local authorities to facilitate the cremation of the dead body in the Narayanpur district headquarters itself, citing fear of spread of communicable diseases as the body was in a decomposed condition, the statement added.
Basavaraju’s brother N. Ramprasad, who was in Narayanpur, had earlier alleged that the Andhra Pradesh government was not allowing them to bring his brother’s body to their native village.
The families of Basavaraju, and Sajja Venkata Nageswara Rao, another Maoist leader who was killed in the Abujhmad encounter, had approached the Andhra Pradesh High Court last week, seeking a direction to hand over the dead bodies to them. During the proceedings, the Advocate General of Chhattisgarh had submitted that after the completion of the post-mortem, they would be handed over to the relatives. The court had directed them to approach the Chhattisgarh Police.
A total of five groups of claimants, including two groups of petitioners in the Andhra Pradesh High Court, reached Narayanpur but could not produce valid and satisfactory documents to prove their relationship to the deceased cadres, a police officer said.
On the police asserting that there were no legal claimants despite family members coming forward and even camping in Narayanpur, Inspector General of Police (Bastar Range) P. Sundarraj said that the “individuals who had contacted the police” did produce their own identification documents, but could not prove any claim of a relationship with the deceased. “Even a certificate from the Sarpanch of the village concerned could have sufficed but they did not have the same,” Mr. Sundarraj said.
Nabla Janardan Rao, who said he was a nephew of the deceased Basavaraju, told journalists in Narayanpur that they had been told by the local authorities that they could not take the body, and that it would be cremated “here [in Narayanpur] itself”.
“The police did not say anything until yesterday. Yesterday evening, they wrote down our name and left. There was no one at the hospital in the morning. We went to the SP’s [Superintendent of Police] office in the morning. After this, at 1 p.m., a person came to us and asked us to follow him. We followed him and then he wrote down our Aadhar card number.After this, he said that we could not take the dead body away, and the last rites would have to be performed here [in Narayanpur] only. We were not allowed to see the dead body. If we had seen that the condition of the dead body was bad, then we would not have taken it and would have asked them to perform the last rites. What kind of a system is this?” Mr. Nabla Janardan Rao said.
Activist Bela Bhatia, who was in Narayanpur, said that the police had performed the last rites of Basavaraju and others forcibly. “I know that in such circumstances there are several judgments in which it has been said that the dead body has dignity, and family members do have a right to perform the last rites. This is in Article 21 of our Constitution and many international laws,” Ms. Bhatia said.
Police sources in Chhattisgarh said that sending the body to Andhra Pradesh could have triggered a law and order situation as the supporters of the Maoists had been planning to conduct a massive funeral.
Published – May 27, 2025 12:04 am IST
