The National Investigation Agency has claimed that crucial digital and written evidence has been recovered in its searches at Andhra Pradesh and Telangana yesterday which clearly establish links between the CPI (Maoist) and accused including a journalist.
The NIA in its statement said 40 mobile phones, 44 SIM cards, 70 storage devices like hard discs, micro SD cards and flash cards, 184 CDs/DVDs, 19 pen drives, tab and audio recorder were recovered during the searches. Also, Rs 10 lakh in cash was found at the premises of one accused along with sickles, axes and machetes.
“CPI (Maoist) flags, as well as huge number of incriminating documents, handwritten letters of CPI (Maoist) party literature, CPI (Maoist) press notes etc. have been recovered,” the NIA said when asked about the linkage of the accused with the Maoists.
On March 7, the NIA had taken over the case from the Vishakapatnam police which accused journalist Pangi Naganna of actively working for Maoists. He was intercepted by the police during a vehicle check drive and was accused of possessing ‘revolutionary literature of CPI (Maoist), press notes, medicines, wire bundles and explosives substances,’ by the Munchingput Police of Visakhapatnam Rural District.
“Investigation revealed that Pangi Naganna had been ostensibly working as a journalist and was passing information about the police movements to the leaders of CPI (Maoist). He has also been involved in instigating the villagers to obstruct combing operations of police and prevent them from entering them into villages and motivating the villagers to revolt against the police parties and hold rallies against the government,” the NIA FIR said.
So far, six people including Naganna have been arrested. Others are Anduluri Annapurna, Jangarla Koteswar Rao, Manukonda Srinivasa Rao, Rela Rajeswari and Boppudi Anjamma.
Over the last 24 hours, the NIA conducted searches at 31 locations spread across eight districts of Andhra Pradesh namely Visakhapatnam, Guntur, Prakasam, Srikakulam, Kurnool, Krishna, East Godavari & Kadapa and four districts of Telangana namely Ranga Reddy, Hyderabad, Medchal-Malkajgiri and Medak.
Organisations like Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties committee and lawyers associated with the organisation were also raided as per officials.
NIA officials told News18 that three organisations, which are suspected to be front organisations of the CPI (Maoist), were also raided. These are Pragati Sheila Karmik Samakhya, Revolutionary Writers Association and Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee. Premises of lawyers associated with these organisations were raided along with residence of two of the arrested accused, Annupurna and Srinivasan. “Raids were on till 4:30 am on April 1. We are still analysing the digital devices recovered during the searches,” an NIA official said.
Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Telegram.
Comments
0 comment