Indian security officials said on Thursday they had killed a senior Maoist commander, striking a major blow to an extreme leftwing guerrilla movement that is waging a low-intensity war against the Indian state.
Police were trying to formally identify the corpse of the commander, shot dead on Wednesday afternoon.
Sources said they were "99% sure" they had killed 58-year-old Molajula Koteswar Rao in an operation in a remote area of the eastern state of West Bengal. "We have recognised his AK47 assault rifle. The rest will follow," one official said. If the death is confirmed, Rao – known as "Kishenji" and the third in command of the guerrillas – would be the latest in a series of senior leaders of the movement to be killed.
The Maoist guerrillas – also known as Naxalites after the village of Naxalbari, where the group started in the late 1960s – have a presence in roughly a third of Indian administrative districts and have been described by the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, as a major strategic security threat to the country.
More than 100,000 security police and paramilitaries have been deployed to remote areas of the centre and east of India to fight the insurgency. However, the government forces, which often lack training and equipment, have been unable to force the guerrillas from the safe havens they have established in forests and mountains.
"Our officers have told us that Kishenji has been killed. It's a huge setback for Maoists," said RK Singh, the Indian home secretary, according to local media.
Rahul Pandita, a specialist in Indian leftwing extremism, said Kishenji's death would undoubtedly be "a major blow".
Pandita, author of a recent book on the Maoists, said: "They have suffered real losses. Half their senior leadership have been wiped out and they are under huge government pressure."
However, he warned that a recent lull in violence should not be taken as a sign of weakness. "It is something of a tactical retreat," Pandita told the Guardian. "They do not want to provoke the government. It's classic guerilla tactics."
The exact circumstances of Rao's death are unclear, but the area where he was found has been contested by the Maoists, local Communists, groups linked to other local parties and state security forces for many years. Several hours' drive south of Calcutta, it is one of the poorest regions of India. The Maoists' heartland is the remote, forested hills of central Chhattisgarh, where vast natural resources are to be found. Many of their recruits are from marginalised "tribal" communities who live in desperate poverty. Most of the leaders are from urban and often intellectual backgrounds.
Rao, a politburo member of the banned Communist party of India (Maoist), was one of the movement's most experienced military commanders. He claimed responsibility for an attack on a camp in 2010 in which 24 paramilitary policemen died. Such strikes occur several times each year.
A first wave of Naxalite violence lasted from the late 1960s into the 1970s, when it was crushed by authorities. It returned as a major problem in the last decade. The Maoists have been criticised for running kangaroo courts that impose harsh punishments and for extorting cash from local businesses.
Analysts estimate there are around 10,000 full-time fighters in the Maoist movement, with many times more part-time supporters.