RAIPUR: A former Maoist who once roamed the same forests as Madvi Hidma has revealed how one of India’s most notorious insurgent commanders was first recruited into the outlawed movement — not by choice, but by circumstance, opportunity, and a senior cadre’s eye for 'talent'.
Badranna, a surrendered Maoist who laid down arms in 2000 and now works as a gardener with the Jagdalpur Municipal Corporation, told a local Bastar reporter that he was the one who inducted Hidma into the Maoist ranks when the boy was barely 15–16 years old.
“I was the first to pick him for the Maoist organisation,” Badranna said. “I handed him his first weapon.”
Chhattisgarh police records verifies the fact that it was Badranna who had recruited Hidma to the banned outfit.
Recalling the late 1990s in Sukma’s Puvarti village, Badranna said he was then a deputy commander tasked with building an area platoon for the Maoist outfit. During visits to Puvarti, where he worked with villagers to dig a pond, he noticed a tall, wiry tribal boy who would quietly stand and watch with curiosity.
“That was the first time I saw him — tall, strong body, sharp eyes,” Badranna said. “I knew he was fit for the movement. He didn’t come asking to join; I went to him. I took him into the Bal Sangham as a child soldier.”
Hidma, he said, had no moustache then, was recently married, and showed early signs of grit — “jujharu enough to go up in ranks.” Within a week of joining, he was moved into the platoon.
“He had no idea what the party (organisation) was, how it worked, or what outcome awaited him. He joined because he saw me, a fellow tribal, and trusted me,” Badranna added with visible regret.
“Hidma was the kind who, if killed in an encounter, would kill 2–3 first” Even years after leaving the movement, Badranna said he had always believed that if Hidma ever died in a gunbattle, it would not happen without him taking down at least two or three lives.
“That’s the kind of fighter he was,” he said.
When news of Hidma’s death in Andhra Pradesh flashed on television, Badranna said the shock hit hard.
“My wife called me around 3 pm yesterday. I rushed and switched on the TV,” he recalled. “I spent many years with him. Since yesterday, I have been sad. He was a poor tribal boy… I am also a tribal. He joined the party because of me.”
Reacting to the viral image of Hidma’s body after the encounter, Badranna admitted he initially doubted its authenticity.
“When I first saw the picture, my thought was — this doesn’t look like him. He looked different. Even the uniform he was wearing looked new,” he said. “But later, I understood it was him.”
He said it felt surreal that a boy from a remote, impoverished village in Sukma had risen to the highest levels of the Maoist hierarchy, becoming battalion commander and eventually a Central Committee member.
“He came from a very small, remote place and reached the top as a tribal cadre,” he said. “He was a fast learner — that was his strength.”
Badranna admitted feeling a sense of responsibility — even guilt — for having picked a village boy whose life would go on to be defined by bloodshed and violence.
“There are others I recruited too, and they joined because of me,” he said.
Despite his own surrender nearly 25 years ago, Badranna said he never attempted to reach out to Hidma or advise him to quit the movement.
“As per party rules, Maoists can ask people to join the movement, but can never ask anyone to surrender,” he explained. “After I surrendered, I cut off contact completely.”
He also revealed that when he surrendered in 2000, he declared publicly that the Maoist outfit had sent him “as a sample” to show how a surrendered Maoist would be treated — a claim that raised eyebrows within security circles at the time.
As Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh police confirm the identity of the slain Maoist, the man who first handed him a weapon now watches from afar — a recruiter who knows he helped set in motion a life that could end only in the way most Maoist lives do: violently, abruptly, and far from home.
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