Hyderabad: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had Wednesday conducted raids across 31 locations in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, which included residences of human rights, civil rights and labour rights activists, advocates, members of cultural troupes, and even an independent artist.
The agency has claimed that the raids, which went on for more than nine hours, were in relation to the Munchingiputtu case of Andhra’s Visakhapatnam Rural district.
The case relates to an alleged Maoist ‘courier’ Pangi Naganna being intercepted by local police during a regular vehicle checking in November last year. Revolutionary literature of CPI (Maoist), press notes, medicines, wire bundles and explosives substances were allegedly seized from him.
Naganna was arrested and has since been charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and several other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Five others — Anduluri Annapurna, Jangarla Koteswar Rao, Manukonda Srinivasa Rao, Rela Rajeswari and Boppudi Anjamma — have also been arrested in the case by Andhra Pradesh Police.
The case, registered on 23 November, was taken over by NIA after orders from the Ministry of Home Affairs on 5 March.
According to the NIA, Naganna, who had been working as a journalist, was allegedly passing information about police movement 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,” an NIA officer told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
The NIA has claimed that Naganna allegedly named several activists who are allegedly working for the outlawed Maoist party.
The agency has also named 64 activists in its FIR for allegedly “furthering the activities of the proscribed organisation, CPI(Maoist) in Andhra Pradesh in the guise of frontal organisations”. It has invoked stringent sections, including those under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), sedition, criminal conspiracy and the Arms Act against the 64 accused.
It raided the residences of 30 of them Wednesday, according to the independent rights organisation Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (CLC).
The activists
Among those whose houses were raided is Boppudi Anjamma, a member of Amarula Bandhu Mithrula Sangham, an independent organisation which works for ensuring proper last rites are observed for abandoned bodies following an encounter. Anjamma is in the custody of the Andhra Pradesh Police.
Her residence, at Ganapavaram village in Andhra Pradesh’s Prakasam district, was raided. Her husband Lakshmaiah, who was with All India People’s Resistance Forum, was killed in an encounter.
“Her husband was killed in an encounter and police alleged that he had links to Maoists,” N. Narayana Rao, joint secretary of CLC, told ThePrint. “Following her husband’s encounter, she went to collect his body and saw that there were a few others who were killed — their bodies just lying there with no one to claim them. That’s when she joined this organisation to work for such cases.”
Jangarla Koteshwar Rao, another accused in police custody whose house was also raided, is a member of Praja Kala Mandali — an independent revolutionary cultural troupe raising awareness on social issues such as farmer suicides, untouchability, violence against women and female foeticide.
Anduluri Annapurna, who was a member of CLC until 2004, had joined the labour rights organisation, Pragathishila Karmika Samakya, three years ago. She is in police custody along with her husband Manukonda Srinivasa Rao, who is a member of Revolutionary Writers Association.
Rela Rajeshwari, also in custody, is a women’s rights activist in Andhra’s Guntur and is associated with Chaitanya Mahila Sangham. Her residence was among those raided by the NIA.
Others whose premises were raided Wednesday include V.S. Krishna, a former journalist and co-ordination committee member of the Human Rights Forum (HRF), a civil liberties group in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
He has been fighting for 11 Adivasi women, who were allegedly raped at gun-point by the anti-Naxal police force, the Greyhounds, in Andhra Pradesh in 2007.
The Visakhapatnam Rural Police accused Krishna of being a Maoist and coercing the rape survivors into “falsely testifying” against the Greyhounds personnel.
In Telangana, residences of advocate and Civil Liberties Committee member V Raghunath; the Praja Kala Mandali president John; revolutionary singer Dappu Ramesh, and about five women rights activists, were raided.
In Andhra Pradesh, those raided include Varalakshmi of the Revolutionary Writers Association; Virasam, Chittibabu, Chiluka Chandrasekhar, Sriram of CLC; Padma of the Committee for Release of Political Prisoners, and Balakrishna of the Human Rights Forum or HRF.
‘Govt targeting critics’
The raids drew the condemnation of the organisations.
“Based on what are they (NIA) declaring an entire organisation as a frontal organisation? When you’re declaring a body as a frontal organisation, they must also be given a chance to represent themselves,” K. Sudha, the HRF general secretary, said. “And according to UAPA, only the central government can declare any organisation as one associated with terrorist movements.”
Condemning the raids and likening them to the Bhima Koregaon case, the CLC demanded revoking of the “draconian” UAPA, and withdrawal of the “false cases” against the activists.
“Any activist, advocate, poet, writer or be it anybody talking against the government and their policies is being targeted by the government,” Narayana Rao of CLC said. “A lot of the organisations whose activists are under the NIA scanner have been fighting against fake police encounters in the court,” he added.
(Edited by Arun Prashanth)
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