Varavara Rao arrested for plot to kill Modi
Multi-city raids part of a probe into Bhima-Koregaon violence
Revolutionary writer and activist Varavara Rao was arrested by the Vishrambaug police, Pune, from his house at Gandhinagar in Hyderabad on Tuesday. The police said that Mr Rao was arrested in connection with the Elgar Parishad event that led to the violence in Pune on December 31, last year.
Near simultaneous searches were carried out at the residences of Rao in Hyderabad, activists Vernon Gonzalves and Arun Farreira in Mumbai, trade union activist Sudha Bhardwaj in Faridabad and civil liberties activist Gautam Navalakha in New Delhi.
The role of Mr Rao followed the probe into five persons who were arrested and who were allegedly linked to the Maoist party, which reportedly planned to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Police teams from Pune headed by DCP Suhas Bawache, assisted by the local task force searched the houses of Mr Rao’s sons-in-law — K.V. Kurmanath, journalist working for a national daily, Satynarayana, professor at EFLU (English and Foreign Languages University) and also the house of T. Purushotham Reddy alias Kranthi, a journalist working for a regional daily.
The simultaneous searches started at 6 am and lasted till 1.30 pm at the houses of Mr Rao, Mr Kurmanath and Mr Kranthi, which ended with the arrest of Mr Rao. The police had cordoned off the residential areas and did not allow outsiders to enter the apartments in which the searches were carried out.
It might be recalled that in the first week of June, the Pune police arrested activist Sudhir Dhawale in Mumbai, advocate Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut and Shoma Sen from Nagpur and Rona Wilson from Delhi.
Letters recovered from Rona Wilson which were written by Surendra Gadling purportedly indicated that Rao would arrange funds to carry out “attacks”. However, Rao had earlier denied the allegations and said the letters were concocted.
Varavara Rao was then taken to Gandhi Hospital for a medical check-up, where his blood pressure was reported as 160/90.
Being in the forefront among the public to oppose the encounters and violence against the tribals for over 50 years, Varavara Rao has played a vital role in raising his voice against the alleged atrocities.
Virasam (Viplava Rachayithala Sangham) also called as Revolutionary Writers’ Association, founded by Varavara Rao has untied several hundreds of poets across the country.
Once, in 2001, he acted as a mediator between the then Telugu Desam Party government and the Peoples War group and proposed for peace talks which were held between May and July 2002. However, he and balladeer Gaddar had to take back their stance, following the unabated encounters. Rao again took part in the peace talks between Congress and the Peoples War Group in 2004. It resulted in the ban of CPI (Maoist) party and also Virasam, and a few orgnaisations in 2005.
He also penned down 15 poetry anthologies.