Three commandos of the elite Greyhounds, the anti-Maoist force of the police, were killed in an ambush by Maoists in the dense Vajedu forest in Mulug district of Telangana in the early hours of Thursday.The incident marked the first police casualty since ‘Operation Kagar’ (Final Mission) was launched by the Union government in the ‘Red Corridor’ of the Chhattisgarh’s Bastar, Telangana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Odisha.According to a release from Telangana’s Director General of Police, a team of Greyhounds and the local police set out to detect Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in the forest of Venkatapuram, falling in Vajedu and Perur police station limits, on Wednesday night.The police party acted on a press statement of Maoist party warning tribals not to venture into the forest as it had planted IEDs and other bombs there. The mission was to diffuse these IEDs.Around 6 am on Thursday, approximately 35–40 Maoists lying in ambush triggered landmines after spotting a police patrol in the forest, about four kilometres from Penugolu village. They also opened fire on the forces but fled when the police repulsed the attack.Three constables of the Greyhounds – Vadla Sridhar, N. Pawan Kalyan and T. Sandeep – succumbed to bullet injuries. A Reserve Sub-Inspector of Greyhounds, Ch. Ranadheer, was also injured in the incident but is out of danger.Hours after the police confirmed the death of constables, the Telangana state committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) or CPI (Maoist) issued a backdated statement announcing a six month ceasefire from its side to provide a conducive atmosphere for peace talks between the party and the government.The statement, released in the name of Jagan, the official spokesperson of the committee, said peace talks should be understood as an attempt to create democratic space to end hostilities in the state as well as the country. Many people, democrats, people’s organisations and political parties have brought the issue of talks to the centre stage. “Keeping this in view, we are announcing implementation of a six month ceasefire from our side,” the statement said.Chief minister A. Revanth Reddy and his predecessor K. Chandrasekhar Rao had also supported these talks.The statement also noted that the CPI (Maoist) had organised programmes across the state emphasising the need for talks. The remaining Left parties have towed the line.The attack on the police party took place at a time when over 20,000 personnel of Central Reserve Police Force, its Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (COBRA) team, District Reserve Guard, Special Task Force and other police forces of Chhattisgarh are on a massive manhunt to flush out Maoists from Karregutta (black hills) hill ranges that divide Telangana and Chhattisgarh.Forces had been trekking the hostile hills for the past 20 days. They killed 22 Maoists in an alleged encounter on Wednesday (May 7) alone while three other Maoists were killed two days earlier.According to South Asia Terrorism Portal, about 235 Maoists were killed in Operation Kagar in 2024. Another 140 were killed in the first three months of this year. Unofficial accounts also put their death toll in Chhattisgarh and other states since the launch of the operation on January 1, 2024 at just over 400, nearly matching the tally on the portal.Barring 13 Maoists who were killed in Telangana, 12 in Maharashtra and 8 including a central committee member in Jharkhand, the remaining deaths occurred in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh.The operation is a pet project of Union home minister Amit Shah, aimed at eradicating Maoists and dismantling the ideology of Maoism by March 31, 2026. It is a large-scale counter insurgency initiative taken up with one lakh personnel of paramilitary forces.The operation follows a four-pronged strategy to establish forward operating bases, build fortified police stations in reclaimed areas, gather intelligence through high tech monitoring and push a generous surrender policy to Maoists to lay down arms and join the mainstream.Central forces recently managed to set up a temporary base camp and hoisted an Indian national flag at a strategic location in Maoists territory in Karregutta a few days back. The movement of the forces was slowed down due to inhospitable conditions on the hills. Some of the personnel were also said to have suffered dehydration due to continuous walking in scorching sun over the last fortnight.The large number of casualties on the part of Maoists due to Operation Kagar was met with widespread protests from civil rights activists. CPI (Maoist) offered to hold peace talks with the Union government in this backdrop but the Union minister of state for home, Bandi Sanjay Kumar, rejected the proposal. The minister was firm that the Maoists should lay down arms before the talks can take place.A Telangana-based committee supporting the peace talks, headed by retired Justice Chandra Kumar, also met chief minister Reddy seeking the state government’s intervention.Former chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao also favoured the talks, noting that lives of innocent tribals were lost in the operation. At a recent public meeting in Warangal district, he promised to write a letter to the Union government to stop the hostility.Panchayat Raj minister Seethakka, who was a Maoist herself before entering politics, along with the DGP, Congress MLAs N. Rajender Reddy, A. Nagaraju and Revuri Prakash Reddy, and senior police officials, paid their respects to the slain policemen.