Cornered Maoists are trying to influence urban people: Rajnath
a sister publication of the Hindustan Times.
“I have received this information through intelligence agencies,” Singh said.
The arrest of five prominent human rights activists this week — P. Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira in Mumbai, Sudha Bharadwaj in Faridabad and Gautam Navalakha in Delhi — has led to the coinage of the term ‘urban naxals,’ as Maoists are known in India after the West Bengal village where a violent left-wing rebellion broke out in the 1960s.
The home minister justified the arrest of the five in connection with the January 1 violence in Bhima Koregaon near Pune where members of the Maratha and Dalit communities clashed.
“Such arrests have been made before. The charges are serious, like conspiracy to destabilise the government, ideology to promote violence. But now the matter is before the Supreme Court and it will take a decision on it,” Singh said.
When asked about government attempts to control social media, especially when it was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that had made maximum use of it to come to power in 2014, Singh said, “We did not win because of social media but because of the work [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi had done in Gujarat. We are not against social media, but our responsibility is to stop fake news, pornography etc. How do we allow children to see such things?”
So-called fake news spread on social media and messaging platforms has been blamed for triggering mob violence in parts of the country that led to the lynching of suspected cattle thieves and smugglers and child lifters, prompting the government to intervene.