Arrested Communist Party of India-Maoist spokesperson Gaur Chakraborty was on Wednesday remanded in police custody for 14 days, even as another member of the group and his wife were nabbed in Bankura district on charges of waging war against the state.
Even though the NIA claims that more than 90 per cent of cases charge-sheeted have ended in conviction, the figure is likely misleading. To date, very few cases investigated by the NIA have resulted in a completed trial, points out former CBI joint director Navneet Rajan Wasan.
The police official, while addressing a press conference on Wednesday, said the Elgar Parishad had been funded by the Maoists.
The release of activists Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira, accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, could get delayed as a special NIA court in Mumbai on Monday rejected their pleas for temporary cash bail.
A bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Sudhanshu Dhulia said the actual involvement of Gonsalves and Ferreira in any terrorist act has not surfaced from any third-party communications.
'They have realised that class war is not possible in India, so they are trying to bring about a caste war.'
Prima facie there was a nexus between human rights activist Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, and Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, an agent of Pakistan's spy agency ISI convicted in the United States for terror funding, a special NIA court has said in its order denying bail to the campaigner.
"You have been extremely unfair to the accused, especially looking at his medical condition. If material witnesses have been examined, then there is no point in putting him in jail," the bench said to the police.
'India is my country and we will raise our voice against anybody who harms the interests of Adivasis, be it the state government or the Maoists.'
The Naxals are trying to set up organisational bases in the Northeast to forge ties with other insurgent groups to meet their military needs and the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border has emerged as another theatre of Maoist activities, the government said on Wednesday.
A professor of Delhi University was arrested by the Maharashtra police on Friday for his alleged links with Maoists, after questioning him more than four times in the last six months.
Two village heads from Bihar's Gaya district had to bear the brunt for defying the diktat by Maoists not to contest the panchayat polls last year.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside a Bombay high court order acquitting former Delhi University professor G N Saibaba in a Maoist links case and remanded it back to the high court for fresh consideration on merits within four months.
A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice Hima Kohli said it will not interfere with the high court order granting bail to Teltumbde.
Hany Babu Musaliyarveettil Tharayil, 54, a resident of Gautam Buddha Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, is an associate professor in the Department of English
Suspended Delhi University Professor G N Saibaba and five others were on Tuesday convicted by a sessions court for their links with the Maoists.
Jonathan Bond, a Swiss national, was detained by the Kerala police for attending a memorial function in Thrissur organised for Sinoj, a suspected Maoist who was killed while making bombs in Andhra Pradesh. The police allege that Bond spoke during the memorial function held in a private hall in Thriprayar, Thrissur on July 28.
Talking tough a day after the beheading of a Jharkhand police officer, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday said the security forces will engage the Maoists till they abjure violence and the air force will take steps to protect itself from any Naxal attacks.
Despite being 90% handicapped, suffering from multiple ailments and dependent on a wheelchair, the former Delhi University professor has not been able to step out of the anda cell of the Nagpur Jail at all since his conviction.
Fearing imminent arrest and likely reprisals from the CRPF -- 25 of whose jawans were gunned down by the Maoists inside a jungle just 200 to 300 metres away from their homes on the afternoon of April 24 -- young Adivasi men and women in Burkapal abandoned their homes and fled into the jungle.
They were called to the special cell office in the afternoon and questioned till late evening, a Delhi police source said.
The Bombay high court on Friday granted bail to scholar-activist Anand Teltumbde, arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
The kidnapping and subsequent beheading of Jharkhand Police Inspector Francis Enduwar was in retaliation to the offensives mounted by the Jharkhand police and not related to the arrest of senior Maoist leader Kobad Ghandy, the state police said on Tuesday. "We had killed one and arrested another armed dalam member in recent times. The posters we recovered tell us that the killing of Inspector Enduwar was in retaliation to these successes of the Jharkhand police," said a cop.
Teltumbde, Navlakha and nine other civil liberties activists have been booked under the stringent provisions of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for having alleged Maoist links and conspiring to overthrow the government.
'The Elgar Parishad turned out to be the first rallying cry against the BJP and RSS in Maharashtra.' 'The speakers took a vow not to vote for the BJP.'
The presidential candidate of the Maoists, who is set to become first president of Nepal, had trained the former rebels on how to make explosives during the decade-long armed struggle against monarchy. "I taught them skills to make powerful bombs, which were used during the armed struggle," Ramraja Prasad Singh told reporters after he was named as presidential candidate of the Maoists.
The Pune Police had moved the court Saturday for extension of the 90-day period for filing chargesheet against the five persons, citing fresh arrests in the case.
In a candid conversation Indrani Mitra, educationist Sunanda Sanyal explains why many intellectuals like him are disillusioned with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Tamang Swayatta Krantikari Janaparishad, a Maoist-affiliated organisation, has also banned plying vehicles with Indian number plates in several districts in central Nepal.
In a prize catch, joint forces have arrested top Maoist leader Bikram, who was wanted for a string of killings including that of a CID inspector and two political leaders, from Purulia district.
Teltumbde is the third of the 16 accused arrested in the case to be released on bail.
Fadnavis said the decision of the top court proved that there was no conspiracy behind action by the state police against Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, Sudha Bharadwaj and Gautam Navlakha.
A Maoist, said to be a close aide of slain rebel leader Kishenji, has been arrested in Ranchi, the police said on Monday. Acting on a tip-off, Ramdas alias Nandu was arrested from the Ranchi railway station when he was heading towards Lohardaga.
A controversy erupted on Tuesday after the opposition parties tagged a video of DMK leader A Raja purportedly showing him making remarks that India has never been a nation, but a subcontinent with diverse practices and cultures, prompting strong response from the BJP which described the comments as a call for 'balkanisation' of the the country and demanded for his arrest.
"Over 50 files were created on Swamy's hard drive, including incriminating documents that fabricated links between him and the Maoist insurgency," the report said.
A close aide of top Maoist leader Kishenji and main accused in the Jharkhand MP Sunil Mahato murder case was arrested from a forest in Salboni in West Midnapore district on Friday.
Adivasi teacher and alleged Naxal sympathiser Soni Sori was admitted to Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences on Thursday afternoon. AIIMS had refused to admit Soni Sori on Tuesday, in spite of directions to do so by the Supreme Court.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court against the bail granted to scholar-activist Anand Teltumbde in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
The Supreme Court on Monday suspended the life sentence of Communist Party of India-Maoist activist Narayan Sanyal, held guilty of committing sedition by a Chhattisgarh court in 2010, and granted bail to him.
