NIA arrests DU prof Hany Babu
ACCORDING TO THE NIA, HANY BABU IS SUSPECTED TO HAVE CLOSE LINKS WITH MAOIST LEADERS AND CO-CONSPIRATORS IN ELGAR PARISHAD CASE
nNEWDELHI:THE National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday arrested Delhi University professor Hany Babu Musaliyarveettil Tharayil in connection with the Elgar Parishad case, in which 11 other activists and intellectuals are accused of conspiring with Maoists to foment violence in Maharashtra’s Bhima Koregaon village two years ago.
Two NIA officials, who didn’t wish to be named, said Babu, a 54-year-old associate professor of English, was arrested in Mumbai after four consecutive days of questioning.
One of the officers said he was suspected to have close links with Maoist leaders and co-conspirators in the case -- including activist Gautam Navlakha, scholar Anand Teltumbde and poet-activist Varavara Rao -- and that the agency had irrefutable evidence in the matter.
The NIA spokesperson said investigation revealed that senior leaders of CPI (Maoist), an organisation banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, were in contact with the organizers of Elgar Parishad -- an event held in Pune on December 31, 2017 and attended by hundreds of activists -- and Babu to “spread the ideology of Maoism“and encourage “unlawful activities”.
Babu will be produced before NIA special court in Mumbai on Wednesday.
Investigators say that speeches made at the Elgar Parishad event, which was allegedly funded by Maoists, aggravated caste clashes that broke out near Bhima Koregaon village on January 1, 2018 during the bicentennial celebration of a British-era war commemorated by Dalits.
One person died in the clashes that also sparked widespread protests by Dalit groups that shut down Maharashtra later that month.
Pune (city) police have filed two charge sheets, the first in November 2018 against several activists for their alleged Maoist links and a supplementary charge sheet in February last year.
Apart from Rao, Navlakha, Babu and Teltumbde, those accused of helping Maoists include activist Sudha Bhardwaj, activist Arun Ferriera, lawyers Vernon Gonsalves and Surendra Gadling, activist Rona Wilson, former professor Shoma Sen, social entrepreneur Mahesh Raut and activist Sudhir Dhavale.
Maoist leaders including Ganpathy, Kishan Da alias Prashant Bose and Prakash alias Rituparn Goswami are also named as accused in the charge sheets.
On September 11 last year, Babu’s house in Noida was searched by Pune Police and material recovered from his laptop, phone and hard drives was shared with NIA when the latter took over the case in January this year.
Babu’s Jenny Rowena, a professor at Miranda House college in Delhi, said she intended to approach the courts against the arrest.
She said Babu was summoned by NIA earlier this month. “He wrote to the agency asking for an extension since he would not be able to travel during a pandemic. The extension was granted for one week and he went to Mumbai on July 24,” she said.
Rowena added that the investigating agency was “just talking to him and asking questions” before his arrest on Monday.
“They said that they have found a folder on his computer which has incriminating material against him. Other than that, they don’t have anything. These are letters written by some other people saying he is a Naxal leader etc. Why would somebody keep such a folder on his own laptop? These were not his documents but were shown as his. He said that he didn’t know about the documents and had nothing to do with him,” she said.
Delhi University refused to officially comment. “University cannot interfere because this is a matter of national security and it is being investigated by the NIA,” said a senior DU official on condition of anonymity. A second official added, “Since we have not received any official information on this matter, we cannot comment on it for now.”