Maoist-turned-jawan who died in line of duty fighting his former abductors
Since his village is still under Naxal control, Oyam was given a guard of honour by his colleagues, but his family were warned not to bring his body home
Raju Oyam, from remote Bogra village inside the Bhairamgarh forest in Bijapur district, was abducted by Maoists before he’d turned 10. For the next six summers, the boy shared bunks and broke bread with extremists — brainwashed and trained to wage war against Indian security forces.
On the morning of March 20, in a poetic yet tragic twist of fate, Oyam was the only Indian jawan shot dead in sniper fire during a 10-hour-long gunfight in Bijapur’s Andri forest area in which 26 Naxals were killed. Before dying, the 22-year-old shot down four of his former abductors. He’d broken their grasp by surrendering in 2020. As a member of the police District Reserve Guard (DRG), his death was an honourable one in the line of duty.
Since his village is still under Naxal control, Oyam was given a guard of honour by his colleagues, but his family were warned not to bring his body home.
“Oyam’s elder brother went to the Bijapur district headquarters for the funeral. Naxals came to their house in the village and warned his brother not to bring the body of a police jawan to the village,” one of his relatives, who asked not to be named, told HT.
“This is why the funeral was held in Bhairamgarh and not our village. Naxals still influence our village, but Raju dared to leave the party, surrender, and fight them back.”
A force set up by the state government in 2008, DRG mostly comprises surrendered Naxals and young locals who assist security forces in anti-Naxal operations. These jawans are not used in law-and-order jobs but play a critical role in operations because they know the terrain well and can handle themselves in jungles.
Oyam informally joined DRG on January 1, 2025 but was officially inducted on March 1.
The relative quoted above said that, sometime in 2018, Oyam left the forest and returned to the village. “He told us that he fought with some cadres. For two years, he lived in his house in the village but was still with the banned CPI (Maoist). He was a part of the Jan Militia as an informer, but got disillusioned and surrendered in January 2020. People warned him and his family of consequences — but he ignored their threats.”
From 2020 to 2024, Raju worked as a police informer with the Special Task Force (STF).
“He had extensive knowledge of the jungle because that is where he spent his teenage years. In the last one-and-a-half-years, we know of so many operations in which he played a key role in helping the forces inflict heavy casualties to the Naxals. It was because of his information network and good work that he was later trained by STF officials and selected to join DRG this year,” his relative said.
Even before he was formally inducted into DRG, Oyam was part of this year’s biggest anti-Naxal operation — on February 9, he was with security forces when 31 Naxals were killed at the Indravati National Park in Bijapur. Many of them were members of his former platoon.
“Until his surrender, Raju Oyam was full-time cadre of Platoon 16 under the Indravati Area Committee. The gunfight on February 9 happened in the area where he once operated as a Naxal. In that encounter, Oyam killed two bodyguards of his former commander Malesh (who uses only one name), who is now a Divisional Committee Member (DVCM ), a key leadership position in the Maoist ranks. Oyam once worked directly under Malesh. Our last few conversations were all about finding the top Maoist commander so that the man is not able to inflict more violence or abduct young children and make them Naxals,” his colleague Kamlesh Oyam told HT.
Since December 2024, forces in Bijapur have launched at least three operations against Malesh but he’s managed to elude them on all three occasions. Since December 2023, there has been a clear uptick in aggression from security forces, as part of the central government’s target to end LWE by March 31, 2026. Last year, security forces killed 219 Maoists in the state, much higher than the 22 killed in 2023 and the 30 in 2022. So far, 113 Maoists have been killed this year.
Jitendra Kumar Yadav, superintendent of police(Bijapur), hailed Oyam’s bravery and courage. “He was a fearless young man. His bravery is unimaginable. He was first hit by a bullet but despite being shot, we saw him chasing some Naxals and firing in their direction. Jawans like Oyam are heroes,” he said.
Another DRG jawan, 25-year-old Modu Oyam, who sustained a bullet injury on his hand in the March 20 gunfight, said that, a day before the encounter, he and Raju spoke about having dinner together.
Raju even borrowed ₹1,000 from a friend to buy vegetables since it was his turn to prepare the meal after returning from the encounter. “If the gunfight was successful, he promised to make a special delicacy that night. That was our last conversation before we left the district and were assigned to different teams,” Modu said.
Kamlesh and Modu have now vowed to take down Malesh as a tribute to their slain colleague.
