Teams of the National Investigation Agency raided multiple places in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday and detained at least four persons, police sources said.

The raids began early in the morning at Allahabad, Azamgarh, Varanasi and Chanduali, the police sources said.

An unnamed police officer in Lucknow claimed the searches were prompted by alleged Maoist links and referred to the use of social media to “defame elected democratic institutions”. But a lawyer for some of the raided activists said the NIA action appeared to be a warning to citizens not to criticise the government at the Centre and in the state ahead of the 2024 polls.

An NIA team raided the house of Seema Azad, state secretary of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties and editor of Dastak, a well-known Hindi magazine that takes up the issues of the deprived classes. She and her husband Vishwavijay, both practising lawyers, had been arrested in 2010 on charges of “waging a war against the country” and granted bail after over a year. Vishwavijay and Seema, also an author, have been detained at their home.

Vishwavijay told reporters at the gate of his house while the raid was taking place: “The NIA is an instrument that is abused and misused to intimidate those who raise their voices on issues of civil liberty. Previously, we were branded as Naxalites when we raised the issue of illegal mining and forcible acquisition of farmers’ land by the government for national highways without taking their consent and without giving them adequate compensation.”

Another team went to the house of Seema’s elder brother Manish Azad and his wife Amita Shireen in Allahabad. They had also been arrested in the past on the charge of being Maoist sympathisers.

A third team reached the house of Inqualabi Chhatra Morcha leader Ritesh Vidyarthi and his wife Soni Azad, an advocate in Allahabad. The couple have been detained.

K.K. Rai, an advocate in Allahabad fighting the cases of some of the activists, told The Telegraph over the phone: “Those at whose houses the NIA conducted or are conducting raids are highly educated and respected people. They will obviously raise questions on undemocratic issues. The BJP is terrorising advocates, authors, journalists and human rights activists in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.”

“It is a symbolic move of the government to warn the middle class to refrain from criticising the ruling dispensation,” he added.