The National Investigation Agency on Friday searched nine locations, including the homes of a farm leader and several activists and human rights lawyers in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, over a Maoist recruitment case. 

“A total of nine locations, linked with various accused and suspects…were searched as part of the crackdown. These included four locations in Punjab, two each in UP and Haryana and one in Delhi. All these states, along with Himachal Pradesh, constitute the National Regional Bureau, which the terrorist organisation is aggressively targeting in a bid to re-energise itself,” the NIA said in a statement. 

Among those searched include Bhatinda-based farmer leader Sukhwinder Kaur, human rights lawyer Mandeep Singh in Mohali, human rights lawyers Ajay Kumar and Aarti in Chandigarh, human rights activist and lawyer Pankaj Tyagi in Sonipat, and Devinder Azan, president of the Inqilabi Chhatra Morcha in Prayagraj. 

The FIR was lodged in Lucknow in June last year on the basis of a complaint filed by Vipul Alok, undersecretary in the ministry of home affairs, alleging that “leaders, cadres and sympathisers” of the CPI (Maoist) are making “concerted attempts” to “re-energise” their “decrepit influence” in northern India.

‘They came around 6 am’

Mandeep Singh, who is also part of the Association For Democratic Rights (Punjab), said around nine officials arrived at his house in Mohali around 6 am. He alleged that they showed him the search warrant but refused to share a copy of the FIR. The NIA has issued him a notice to come to the agency’s office in Lucknow for further questioning next month, sources said.

“At about 6 am, the team of NIA banged the door of my house so hard that its lock was broken. Then they told me that they are from the NIA team from Lucknow. I told them that I have never visited Lucknow my entire life…Then they showed me the search warrant and continued with the search. Then they also asked me questions related to my role as the president of AFDR. I told them that my job is to prepare fact-finding reports to visit areas where human rights violations or communal clashes occur. They also found AFDR reports on minorities in Haryana.”

The NIA seized two cellphones, one laptop and five pen drives from Mandeep’s home, apart from a 63-page booklet on Punjabi writer Baru Satwarg, who died last year.

The agency’s statement did not specify how many devices had been seized during the searches at multiple locations on Thursday.

“The fact that the NIA has seized a booklet on Baru Satwarg is shameful. He had faced oppression during the emergency,” claimed Narain Dutt, president of the Inquilabi Kendra Punjab, a Punjab-based human rights outfit. 

Lawyers Ajay and his wife Aarti were taken to the NIA office in Chandigarh for further questioning, sources said. The NIA team showed the arrest memo to Arti, and the formalities regarding the arrest of Ajay were complete by around 2 am. They informed her that they will seek a transit remand from the judicial magistrate in the NIA District Court in Chandigarh at 10 am before presenting Ajay at the NIA Special Court in Lucknow.

Tyagi was also taken to a police station in Sonipat, according to sources. Meanwhile, the NIA statement said that further investigations are continuing.

‘Condemning intimidation of human rights defenders’ 

Several left organisations under the aegis of the Campaign Against State Repression said in a statement on Saturday that the intelligence agencies were “plotting ways to bring down dissent”, like in the Bhima Koregaon case. 

It claimed that student activists, human rights defenders, and student leaders have been linked to a conspiracy case, similar to the Bhima Koregaon. “The NIA claims that all of these unrelated activists across the different states are activists working for the banned CPI (Maoist) party, and have been working towards the construction of a ‘Northern Regional Bureau’. Last year, several activists who have been working on the issues of farmers, marginalised sections, and displacement were arrested.” 

It said the arrested advocates have been working for the release of political prisoners. “By intimidating and redtagging them, the state is ensuring that political prisoners do not have lawyers who represent them, since it’s a clear message to the lawyers threatening them with trumped-up cases if they defend the activists, and also thereby, denying them the right to a just and fair judicial trial.”

The statement said the NIA has also “targeted a student organisation in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, known as the Inquillabi Chatra Morcha. They have raided the house of a student activist from Inquillabi Chatra Morcha called Devendra Azad…The Indian state has criminalised the ideology of Maoism as such, which is against the democratic right to freedom of thought.”

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