Top cop harps on Naxal link but skirts details of PM plot
Making out a case for the recent nationwide crackdown on human right activists by Pune Police, Maharashtra Additional Director General (Law and Order) Parambir Singh has claimed that they have enough evidence to prove that the arrested activists, including Telugu writer-poet Varavara Rao, lawyer-activist Sudha Bharadwaj and activist Rona Wilson, had links with outlawed Naxal groups.
The police claims to have seized thousands of documents of incriminating conversations between them. Almost all the accused were associated with the Kabir Kala Manch, he claimed, at a press conference on Friday.
Messages were communicated by underground activists using password-protected devices dispatched by courier to activists operating over ground. After police gained access to the mobile phones and emails of the six persons arrested in June, the police found a trail of emails exchanged by Wilson and Maoist leader 'Comrade Prakash'. Based on the primary evidence, the Pune Police conducted nationwide raids on the residences of human rights activists, and seized 'thousands' of letters exchanged between the over ground and underground Maoist cadres.
ADG Singh said, “Bharadwaj was facilitating financial and legal aid for the Maoists. She also spoke of the use of social media to highlight rights abuse.”
A letter written by Bharadwaj to ‘Comrade Prakash’ read, “I am looking over the financial and legal aid of the operation. I am in touch with Comrade Arjun and Gautam Navlakha, and the plan is on. I am also giving legal aid and my duties are as directed.”
The police claimed it was only after clear links had been established between the accused and the Maoist groups that they swooped down on the activists. The police claim to have recovered letters that establish the Maoist organisations were in the process of procuring arms and had tried to engage with some terror groups in Kashmir.
Some letters exchanged between the arrested activists spoke of planning “some Rajiv Gandhi-like event”, which would attract attention. Subsequent arrests will be made after a detailed probe, said Singh.
The said activists were also in talks with Russian and Chinese arms manufacturers,
from where they were acquiring annual supplies of GM-94 grenade launchers with four lakh rounds, added Singh.
A source also said students from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) were taken underground to receive training and participate in seminars propagating the activists’ agenda.