The National Investigation Agency simultaneously raided the premises of at least 25 human rights and civil liberties activists in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh late on Wednesday for alleged Maoist links.
According to the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, the raids continued till the early hours of Thursday and the sleuths seized phones, computers, laptops, books and papers from the activists.
Among those raided are said to be some of the most prominent activists in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, including Raghunath Verose, a Telangana High Court advocate who is associated with the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, Dappu Ramesh who is a member of the Jana Natya Mandali, V.S. Krishna of the Human Rights Forum, and Paani, Varalakshmi and Arun of the Revolutionary Writers’ Association, sources said.
NIA sources said that among the others raided are Devendra, Shilpa, Swapna, Rajeswari and Padma of the Chaitanya Mahila Sangam, Raghunath, Chilika Chandrashekhar and Chitti Babu of the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, Krishna of the Human Rights Forum, Dappu Ramesh of the Prajakala Mandali, Anjamma and Sirisha of the Amarula Bandhu Mitrula Sangham, and advocate K.S. Chelam.
The agency has not officially revealed the names of the 25 activists who were raided and the details of their alleged links with Maoists.
The NIA raids come after it took over the investigation launched in the aftermath of the arrest of an alleged Maoist courier, Pangi Naganna, at Vishakapatnam Rural district in Andhra Pradesh last December.
The case pertains to the seizure of revolutionary literature of the CPI (Maoist), press notes, medicines, wire bundles and explosive substances from Pangi.
“The investigation revealed that Pangi had been ostensibly working as a journalist and was passing on information about police movements to the leaders of the CPI (Maoist) He had also been involved in instigating villagers to obstruct combing operations of the police and prevent them from entering villages and motivating the villagers to revolt against the police… and hold rallies against the government....,” the NIA said in a statement. Besides Pangi, the agency had arrested five others — Anduluri Annapurna, Jangarla Koteswar Rao, Manukonda Srinivasa Rao, Rela Rajeswari and Boppudi Anjamma.
“During the searches at 31 premises late on Wednesday we recovered 40 mobile phones, 44 SIM cards, 70 storage devices like hard discs, micro SD cards and flash cards, 184 CDs/DVDs, 19 pen drives, a tab, an audio recorder and Rs 10 lakh in cash from one accused, sickles, axe and machetes, besides CPI (Maoist) flags, as well as a huge number of incriminating documents, handwritten letters of the CPI (Maoist) party literature,” a senior NIA official said.
