The Greyhounds: India’s Elite Jungle Commandos

On a quiet morning near the Ramaguda forest along the Andhra-Odisha border, an elite anti-Naxal force moved through the dense jungle. Acting on pinpoint intelligence about a high-level meeting of top Naxal leadership, small squads stealthily surrounded the location on foot. When the gunfight broke out, the unit’s tactical discipline and fast response neutralised top insurgent commanders.

Illustration by The Geostrata

This was the 2016 Ramaguda encounter, one of the most decisive blows to the regional Naxal network. This level of precise execution belongs to the Greyhounds. It is Andhra Pradesh and Telangana’s specialised anti-Naxal force that is trained specifically for jungle warfare and has turned the tide against the decades-old insurgency across India. 

VISION OF IPS K.S. VYAS: FROM CONVENTIONAL POLICE TO JUNGLE COMMANDOS

To understand the Greyhounds foundation, we must look back at undivided Andhra Pradesh in the late 1980s. The state was caught in a worsening surge of Left Wing Extremism, led primarily by the People’s War Group. Standard police units were not equipped for this kind of fight. Heavy, slow-moving police convoys were routinely ambushed along remote, rural cadres while insurgent cadres used the dense, familiar forests of the Andhra-Telangana belt as safe havens. Local police forces lacked specialised equipment, jungle survival training and the localised insurgent networks needed to counter guerrilla tactics. 

Recognising that conventional policing was falling short, IPS Officer K.S. Vyas proposed a complete shift in strategy. He urged state forces to match the speed, agility and jungle survival capabilities of the insurgents. The Andhra Pradesh government raised the Greyhounds under his leadership in 1989 as a dedicated counter-insurgency force. Vyas designed an intensive training regime that turned young police officers into specialised jungle commandos capable of surviving on minimal rations for days in the deep forests. 

The impact of the unit was so immediate and severe that Vyas became the top target for insurgent groups. Tragically, in January 1993, K.S. Vyas was assassinated by the People’s War Group operatives in Hyderabad. However, the institutional foundation that he built continues to survive. Over the following decades, the Greyhounds transformed from an experimental state police wing into one of India’s most effective and specialised anti-Naxal forces.

INSIDE THE STRUCTURE OF THE GREYHOUNDS

What makes the Greyhounds unique is not just their physical endurance but how they function as an intelligence-driven, surgical strike force. The backbone of their operational success lies in their seamless coordination with the Special Intelligence Branch (SIB), an intelligence wing created specifically to map, track, and penetrate underground insurgent networks. SIB officers build local intelligence networks at the grassroots level, feeding real-time data to the Greyhounds. This eliminates the need for massive search operations, and the Greyhound commandos get deployed only when a precise target is identified. 

The unit operates entirely on a small-squad model. Their operations are carried out by highly agile squads of 15 to 30 commandos led by field commanders.

These teams move exclusively on foot, navigating deep jungle terrain without heavy supply lines or vehicular noise. Commandos are drawn directly on deputation from state police services and undergo brutal physical and tactical training, while learning to survive in forests for 5-6 days at a time, on basic dry rations like nuts and jaggery, as cooking fires would instantly give away their position. The Greyhounds force enforces a strict age limit to maintain peak physical agility. Here, commandos only serve until the age of 35, and after this they are rotated back into civil policing duties. 

Let us now look at some of the operations carried out by the Greyhounds in order to understand how they established their reputation as a lethal, low-visibility force that beats insurgents at their own game inside their own domain. 

CHALPAKA FOREST OPERATIONS (2024)

The Greyhounds demonstrated their operational precision in the Chalpaka forest area along the Telangana-Chhattisgarh border. Acting on real-time human intelligence from the SIB regarding a clandestine gathering of senior cadres, a small assault squad executed a stealth containment maneuver entirely on foot. Instead of relying on heavy firepower that could alert the perimeter, the commandos closed in silently to offer a surrender call.

When met with immediate gunfire, the team executed a disciplined tactical response, neutralising seven senior Maoists, with zero police casualties. The tactical footprint was massive: among those neutralised was Kursam Mangu (alias Bhadry), a state committee secretary who evaded security forces for decades. The Greyhounds also retrieved weaponry like AK-47s. 

MAREDUMILLI OPERATION (2025)

Perhaps one of the most strategically decisive operations in recent counter-insurgency history, the twin encounters in the Maredumilli forest belt of Andhra Pradesh’s Alluri Sitarama Raju district effectively broke the backbone of the Naxal movement.

Code-named ‘Operation Sambhav’, the Greyhounds team executed consecutive strikes over a 24-hour window inside dense forest terrain.

The initial engagement resulted in the neutralisation of six top-tier cadres, including Madvi Hidma, a Central Committee member of CPI (Maoist), who was long considered the most dangerous insurgent strategist in central India.

Later, in a follow-up sweep seven kilometres away, the commandos eliminated seven more high-ranking operatives, including Metturi Joga Rao (alias Tech Shankar), the head of technical operations and arms manufacturing for the Andhra-Odisha border region. By neutralising thirteen senior figures in two days, the Greyhounds shattered the leadership tier of the insurgency, proving that no jungle stronghold remains beyond the reach of actionable intelligence and elite stealth tactics. 

BEYOND SUCCESSFUL OPERATIONS

Despite their reputation for operational success, the Greyhounds operate under complex vulnerabilities and recurring scrutiny. Among their operational challenges is the asymmetric nature of deep-jungle combat. Moving on foot leaves commandos vulnerable to Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and landmines planted along dense transit corridors. This threat was seen in the Balimela reservoir attack in 2008, where 32 commandos were killed in a single strike. Also, maintaining real-time human intelligence across fluid state borders demands constant effort as insurgent cadres quickly adapt by shifting bases into unpoliced zones. 

Beyond physical hazards, the force is also questioned for human rights and legal accountability issues. Civil liberties groups and human rights activists have routinely alleged that remote, low-visibility forest encounters lack sufficient judicial transparency, raising concerns over extrajudicial actions and civilians caught in the crossfire during operations.

The central challenge remains in balancing the imperatives of high-stakes covert warfare with mandatory constitutional checks, such as strict adherence to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) guidelines. Thus, what is crucial to retaining public trust in vulnerable belts is functioning with precision without compromising institutional oversight. 

HOW THE "ANDHRA MODEL" WENT NATIONAL

The operational blueprint developed by the Greyhounds fundamentally transformed how Indian security agencies approached jungle warfare and counter-insurgency. Recognising their structural and operational success, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs used the “Andhra Model” to encourage other affected areas to raise similar dedicated units.

Forces like Chhattisgarh's DRG (District Reserve Guard), Maharashtra’s C-60, Odisha’s SOG (Special Operation Group) and the central CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Reserve Action) were directly modelled after the Greyhounds’ structure, thus collectively pushing Left Wing Extremism to its lowest operational footprint in decades. 

WHAT'S NEXT FOR GREYHOUNDS?

Now as the Maoist insurgency is fading into isolated pockets, the Greyhounds are at a major turning point.

With the Union Home Ministry declaring the nation largely free of active Naxal cadres, the Greyhounds force numbers are dropping. State-level surrender policies led hundreds of insurgents to lay down arms, leaving no active guerrilla units in the region. In response, police leadership is redirecting this elite manpower away from traditional jungle operations towards emerging security needs, specifically anti-narcotics enforcement along remote corridors in the region.

However, this transition brings a fresh debate over the future of this force. Critics question whether a unit built purely for jungle warfare is suited for civil law enforcement or if these specialised squads should instead serve as a tactical reserve for urban and regional crises. Further, dismantling or diluting these specialised squads risks losing decades of operational expertise, leaving the region dangerously short of battle-ready personnel should insurgent threats ever resurface.

The true legacy of the Greyhounds lies not just in their successful operations in deep forests, but in proving that adaptivity, intelligence and restraint, together, can dismantle an insurgency.

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BY RUTUJA

TEAM GEOSTRATA

info@thegeostrata.com