The Maharashtra Police on Friday defended the recent arrests of human rights activists in relation to the Bhima Koregaon violence. The police said that the accused had clear Maoist links and wanted to break the law and order situation in the country.
Addressing the media, Maharashtra Police ADG PB Singh said that the police investigation has revealed that a big controversy was being plotted by Maoist organisations. Singh said that the accused were helping the Maoist organisations in taking their goals forward.
Singh said that a terrorist organisation was also involved and the police moved to take action against the activists after it was confident that clear links had been established between the accused and Maoists. He suggested that the evidence gathered by the police clearly establishes the activists' roles with Maoists. He also said that all the accused had Passcode protected devices.
Singh informed reporters that a case was registered on January 8 in relation with an incident of December 31, 2017, where hate speeches were delivered. The police have imposed several sections against the accused for spreading hatred. He added that almost all the accused were also associated with Kabir Kala Manch.
It is being claimed that there was a conspiracy to create chaos and overthrow the current government. The police assert that they analysed evidence for two months and arrests were only made after they had fully analysed all the evidence. The police have gathered thousands of documents from its searches across various cities in the country and the evidence hint at a big conspiracy.
Singh further said that the evidence is being analysed by the Forensic Science Lab while the police are working on cloned copies of the devices. He said that the integrity of evidence gathered has been maintained and the police do not have access to the original documents which are with the lab.
Singh told media that the evidence collected by the Maharashtra Police clearly suggests that there was a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a Rajiv Gandhi-type assassination. The officer said that the police have recovered a letter from activists Rona Wilson's house in which she has written about procurement of arms to internal committee member Prakash.
Singh said that the Maoists have been using the activists in order to form an all-India front which was aimed at bringing down the current government. He added that the central committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) had also sanctioned payments of Rs 15 lakh to the arrested activists to spread violence after the Bhima Koregaon incident.
Singh read out a part of the letter which was written on April 18, 2017, and talks about spending Rs 8 crore for procurement of Russian Grenade Launchers GM-94, Chinese automatic Grenade Launchers and Machine Guns and also mentions that only Professor Varavara Rao was authorised to procure the arms. He said that the letter also talked about ending the Modi 'raj' with a Rajiv Gandhi-type assassination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Singh also showed a letter written by Varavara Rao to Surendra Gadling which mentions that funds of lakhs of rupees were made available to the Maoists during the time of demonetisation but Gadling had not used them yet. Singh said that Rao had also written a complaint letter against Gadling to the Central Committee. He also read part of a letter written by Gadling in his defence on March 17, 2017, saying that funds could not be made available to comrades working in Gadchiroli and Chhattisgarh during note ban.
The police official also read out a letter written by Milind Teltumde to the Maharashtra State Zonal Committee (MSZC) mentioning that Varavara Rao had made funds available for the procurement of arms and also suggests that the Surjagarh Mines Blast where 80 vehicles were burnt was done on the orders of Rao. Singh said that the custody of Rao was necessary as the police need to interrogate him regarding the procurement of arms by Maoists.
Showing another letter, Singh said that Gautam Navlakha, arrested lawyer, was directly in touch with the Central committee and had received a letter from comrade Sudarshan saying that the Maoists should destroy the fascist regime both politically and otherwise.
Speaking about the arrest of Human Rights activist and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, Singh said that even she had written a letter to comrade Prakash asking for funds for the treatment of her 21-year-old daughter and mentioning that separatists groups from Kashmir were in touch with Comrades Ankit and Gautam Navlakha. In the letter read out by Singh to the media, Bharadwaj mentions that she had stopped getting funds for the treatment of her daughter after the arrest of comrade Prashant.
He read out another letter written by Rona Wilson to Milind Teltumde on January 2 which said that the Bhima Koregaon agitation had been successful and the death of a youth during the violence should be exploited to incite Dalit sentiments against BJP and RSS.
Singh further suggested that students from Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai were being sent to the jungles of Chhattisgarh for an underground insurgency.
Responding to a reporter's question on the use of the term 'Urban Naxal', Singh said that the term was not a new one and when he was working in the Naxal areas as an officer twenty years ago, even then the term 'Urban Naxalite' was there and there were people from urban areas who would support the Naxals back then too.
Multiple raids conducted by the Pune police on Tuesday morning had led to the arrests of several Dalit and human rights activists from various parts of the country including Jharkhand, Telangana, Delhi, Haryana and Goa. The police had arrested activists Vernon Gonsalves from Mumbai and Gautam Navlakha from Delhi.
Lawyer and activist Sudha Bharadwaj was arrested in Haryana and poet Varavara Rao was arrested in Hyderabad. All five were brought to Pune, accused of having Maoist links and booked under sections of the controversial Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
Although the Supreme Court has granted interim relief to the activists arrested in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case, the battle outside court is unlikely to lose steam anytime soon. The Supreme Court had on August 29 ordered that the activists will not be arrested but will be put under house arrest till September 6.
Condemning the arrests Justice DY Chandrachud had said, "Dissent is the safety valve of democracy. If you don't allow dissent, the pressure valve of democracy will burst."
