NIA raids BHU student leaders, PUCL members in 5 UP districts, says it’s a ‘crackdown on Maoists’

Those raided allege they are being targeted for speaking up against the government, saying the NIA operation 'is a serious attempt to stifle voices'.

File photo of NIA building in New Delhi | PTI

Lucknow: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) Tuesday raided at least eight locations in five districts of Uttar Pradesh in what it described as a crackdown on the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). 

The sites raided include residences of two women student leaders of the Bhagat Singh Chhatra Morcha (BSM) in Varanasi and that of three members of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) in Prayagraj.

The BSM is a students’ political body mainly active in Varanasi’s Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and parts of eastern UP. The PUCL is described on its website as “the largest human rights organisation in the country”.

Those raided Tuesday included two members of the Janvadi Party (Socialist), which had allied with the Samajwadi Party in the 2022 assembly polls. Raids were also conducted at the Chandauli and Prayagraj homes of activist and BSM founder Ritesh Rai.

“NIA investigations indicate that several frontal organisations and students wings have been tasked to motivate/recruit cadres and propagate the ideology of CPI (Maoist) with the intent of waging a war against the Government of India,” the NIA said in a statement Wednesday. “They were conspiring to commit acts of terror and violence in furtherance of this agenda.”

“Last month, Bihar Police had arrested one Rohit Vidyarthi, the brother of Ritesh Vidyarthi (Ritesh Rai) whose wife is named in the FIR relating to the case. Rohit’s interrogation had further led the state police to arrest Pramod Mishra… in-charge of the NRB (northern regional bureau) of CPI (Maoist),” it said.

The NIA said that raids were conducted on the premises of accused and suspects in Prayagraj, Chandauli, Varanasi, Deoria and Azamgarh districts of UP, and several digital devices seized along with SIM cards, “Maoist literature, books, pamphlets, pocket diaries, money receipt books and other incriminating documents”.

The FIR in connection with the case, it added, names Manish Azad and Ritesh Vidyarthi, along with their associates Vishwa Vijay and his wife Seema Azad, Manish’s wife Amita Shireen, Kripa Shankar, Rai’s wife Soni Azad, Akanksha Sharma and Rajesh Azad (Rajesh Chauhan) as some of the key accused working to further efforts to revive the CPI (Maoist).

These people include those raided Tuesday, and comprise BSM and PUCL members as well as activists and advocates.

Sharma is a BSM leader who has been issued a notice to appear at the agency’s office in Lucknow on 12 September in connection with a June 2023 case lodged under IPC sections 120B (conspiracy) and 121A (conspiracy to commit certain serious offences or using criminal force to overawe the central government or any state government). 

The case also invokes the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 — sections 18 (conspiracy or attempt to commit a terrorist act), 18-b (punishment for recruiting of any person or persons for terrorist act), 20 (member of terrorist camp), 38 (offence relating to membership of a terrorist organisation) and 39 (offence relating to support given to a terrorist organisation). ThePrint has a copy of the notice.

While the BSM has alleged that those speaking up against the government are being targeted, the PUCL said in a statement that the NIA “operation… is a serious attempt to stifle the voices of an active human rights and democracy defender, which is unacceptable and the PUCL strongly objects to this tyrannical act of the NIA agency”.

“It demands that the NIA withdraw its investigation against Seema Azad and not criminalise any action undertaken by her in the course of her human rights work,” the statement added.

Azad is the national secretary and UP state president of PUCL and among those struck by the raids.

‘NIA seizes laptops, literature’ 

BSM members have alleged that the NIA team arrived at the residence-cum-library of the outfit in Varanasi’s Mahamanapuri locality where they seized mobile phones of two members.

“The NIA team arrived around 5.30 am and left around 1.30 pm. We got to know about the raids only around 8.30 am because they seized the phones of Akanksha Sharma and Siddhi Bismil who are both students of BHU and office-bearers of BSM,” member Anupam Kumar told ThePrint.

“Copies of magazines Dastak — which is published from Prayagraj — and Chhatra Mashaal were seized. They also searched the dissertations of the students to see what they were writing,” he said.

Anupam alleged that their outfit was being targeted for speaking up against the government. He said the BSM has been raising issues such as implementation of OBC reservation in BHU hostels.

The BSM member also referred to a 27 August protest at the BHU main gate against the alleged “attempts to snatch the land of adivasis by corporates, demolishing of Varanasi campus of Sarva Sewa Sangh — which was founded by Vinoba Bhave — to vacate the land for Railways, and demanding release of political prisoners termed terrorists and Naxalites”.

The protest, he said, saw participation of BSM and civil society members.

“…Ahead of the 2024 (Lok Sabha) elections, all those raising their voice against the government are being targeted,” he alleged.

Raids in Prayagraj

In Prayagraj, the house of PUCL’s Seema Azad, and advocate and editor of Dastak, was raided and she and her husband Vishwa Vijay detained, the outfit has alleged.

In its statement, the PUCL said, “All devices of Seema Azad, her books, poems, magazines, and other documents have been seized by the NIA officers according to news sources.” 

“Some media personnel have tried to insinuate that these raids were happening as the CPI Maoist party is ‘recruiting innocent urban youth as urban Naxals’ and other news portals also said that this is a part of the larger crackdown being undertaken on the alleged Left extremists by the NIA in the country.”  

The PUCL said “the way in which the NIA and the MHA are selectively leaking unsubstantiated information about those apprehended today appears that they have deliberately launched a smear campaign against those detained by dubbing them to be ‘extremists, anti-national, anti-state’ thereby ‘manufacturing’ public support for their illegal actions”.

Demanding the immediate withdrawal of the FIR lodged by the NIA, the PUCL said it is “concerned that under the cover of ‘Naxalism and Maoism’, those working to ensure that the directive principles of state policy become a living reality for the marginalised are being criminalised”.

The statement added that the NIA also raided the Prayagraj residences of PUCL member Soni Azad, Ritesh Rai, and Manish Azad, who were “interrogated for several hours”.

The NIA has also raided the residence of advocate Kripa Shankar and his partner Binda in Prayagraj, a PUCL member told ThePrint.

In Deoria, Azamgarh

In Deoria, the NIA raided the house of Ramnath Chauhan, national general secretary of Janvadi Party (Socialist) in Uma Nagar area. Chauhan’s son Rajesh Chauhan alias Rajesh Azad is the head of the party’s Kisan Morcha.

Chauhan, who spoke to the local press after the raids, said his son has been active in the farmers’ protest against the Manduri airport expansion in Azamgarh’s Khiriyabagh and associated with the Sanyukta Kisan Morcha, which led the protests against the three controversial farm laws (since repealed) introduced by the Modi government.

The NIA also raided the house of Rajesh Chauhan’s in-laws in Azamgarh’s Bairampur and reportedly seized books and literature of Left-wing ideology.

Local media quoted Chauhan as saying that the central government was scared ahead of 2024 elections and was suppressing political and social activists.    

(Edited by Smriti Sinha)