'Those giving voice to the voiceless should be welcomed, not punished.' 'Yes, I paid a price -- 10 years in jail -- but it wasn't only me who did so. There are many paying the price.'
With the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) planning to create disturbances to mark its decade of formation this September, police is bracing up to counter any such move and make people aware about the "futility" of the rebel movements.
N Sathiya Moorthy goes back in time to dig up three cases that may not have any citation in legal text-books or lawyers' ready-reckoners quoted before courts but which may still have a bearing on the current case against the arrested activists.
He was the mastermind in laying many an ambush, triggering bomb blasts and other subversive activities.
On January 1 in 2018, violence erupted at an event to mark 100 years of the Bhima-Koregaon battle, leaving one dead and several injured, including 10 policemen.
A special National Investigation Agency court in Mumbai has allowed activist Anand Teltumbde, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, to have a telephonic conversation with his mother for five minutes in the wake of the death of his brother Milind Teltumbde, a top Naxal leader, in an encounter with security forces last week.
'...incarcerated in jails, ruining their entire families.' 'You would see that Dalits who displayed so much agitation over the Bhima-Koregaon issue are effectively silenced by the arrests of their activists by the police.' 'What can be a more pitiable state than this for a people who had just seen a ray of hope after darkness of millennia?'
Pune police on Tuesday raided homes of prominent Left-wing activists in several states and arrested at least five of them -- poet Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, activists Vernon Gonzalves and Arun Ferreira in Mumbai, trade unionist and lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj in Faridabad and Chhattisgarh and civil liberties activist Gautam Navalakha in Delhi.
Navlakha, Teltumbde and several other activists have been booked by the Pune Police for their alleged Maoist links and several other charges following the violence at Koregaon Bhima village in Pune district on January 1, 2018.
Either this affidavit was prepared a long time back, or, Ambedkar has not been following the Commission's hearings.
A special NIA court here on Wednesday denied interim bail to activist Anand Teltumbde, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, to visit his nonagenarian mother in wake of the death of his brother Milind Teltumbde, a top Naxal leader, in an encounter with security forces last month.
'These charges of the prosecution will fall to the ground and I am 100 per cent sure of that.'
Rao was taken into custody in Hyderabad on Saturday after his house arrest ended on November 15 and his petition to quash the transit remand was disposed of by a court there on November 16.
Jha, a fearless officer of the country's largest paramilitary force, led a lethal anti-Naxal operation on July 3 last year in Jamui district of Bihar.
'We urge you to take remedial measures to address this blatant injustice pending withdrawal of the case against them,' the MPs write.
When the fierce encounter ended around 3:30 PM on Saturday after almost 10 hours, senior cadre Milind Teltumbade and 25 ultras had been killed.
The term "urban Naxal" was used by the Pune Police probing the alleged links between the Elgar Parishad conclave of December 31, 2017 and the caste clashes around Koregaon Bhima in Pune district the next day.
Action should be taken against those arrested for alleged Naxal links if there was evidence, he said.
The case was being probed by the Pune Police.
Jyoti Punwani reports on the strange case of Prashant Rahi, MTech, journalist, activist, now in solitary confinement in a Maharashtra prison.
For four days, the officer avoided giving any straight answers, becoming the first witness in the 48 witnesses that have appeared so far, to have achieved this feat.
Rao was shifted to the government-run hospital in south Mumbai after he complained of giddiness.
Rao's family members along with several writers and activists had asked the Maharashtra government to immediately shift him to hospital for treatment, citing his deteriorating health condition.
'The category of crime and criminals called Maoist or Naxal or #UrbanNaxals is an illegitimate creation of right-wing propaganda media frenzy.' 'It is a fiction repugnant to the Constitution and the law of the land,' argue Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira.
Maoists on Wednesday set afire a railway station, attacked a police station and blew up six mobile phone towers at different places to enforce a bandh to protest the arrest of their leader Jagdish Master in Bihar's Gaya district.
The letter was seized during nationwide raids conducted by the Pune police in connection with the case following which these activists were arrested, he said.
The activist, who advises various farmer organisations, was arrested when Assam was witnessing widespread protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
Rashmi Shukla's testimony comes as a revelation because the proceedings of the Elgar Parishad form the basis of the Bhima Koregaon case which has become an international cause celebre.
The 70-year-old was the only contender in the election.
Union minister Prakash Javadekar said everybody should have condemned such an attempt, more so as India has lost two prime ministers to violence.
Why Dalit leaders cross over to the BJP
A senior police official, however, said Monday the charges against the 85-year-old in the Koregaon-Bhima violence case have not been dropped.
The ultras for the first time this season put up pamphlets, banners and flags on Thursday, appealing to people to observe Maoist week -- from July 28 to August 3.
Farmer leader Kanwalpreet Singh Pannu said that thousands of farmers will start their 'Delhi Chalo' march from Rajasthan's Shahjahanpur through the Jaipur-Delhi Highway at 11 am on Sunday.
A former female Maoist, once arrested on the charge of murdering a Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader, but released for lack of evidence, now says she wants to stay away from extremists and join the police force.
'I was told to go to the next room and strip -- that's when it really hits you for the first time... that you are a criminal and you are being treated like one.' 'It comes as a shock when, instead of your name, you hear, "Yeh naya Maowadi aaya hai (A new Maoist has arrived)".'
A quick look at the 66-year-old leader's political journey in the mid-1970s shows how injuries and physical assaults have shaped her political career over the years.
Munde, whose party is a key ally in the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government, has made the demand in a letter written to Thackeray on Monday.
In an ominous development, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence has roped in separatist leaders and their sympathisers to make inroads in Naxal ranks in its anti-India strategies after making a failed attempt to enlist the support of the Maoist rebels.
Talking to reporters in Kolhapur, Pawar said it was not right on the part of the Centre to hand over the probe into the case, which was with the Pune police, to the NIA as law and order was a state subject. NCP leader and Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said Uddhav Thackeray had overruled him on the probe in the case.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances