A journalist’s house was among 12 locations, including seven homes, searched by the NIA across four districts in West Bengal on Tuesday. 

The searches were in connection with the NIA’s crackdown on Maoist supporters, and they come a month after Union home minister Amit Shah gave police forces a two-year deadline to eliminate left-wing extremism across India.

The 12 premises searched are linked to seven individuals, including two women and the journalist, who are accused of being supporters of the banned CPI (Maoist). The searches were carried out by the NIA’s Ranchi wing in Kolkata, North 24 Parganas, Nadia and West Burdwan districts over a case lodged by the agency in 2022 linked to an alleged Maoist conspiracy to propagate left-wing extremism in northern and eastern India, officials said.

Arrested in 2010, out on bail

The journalist has been identified as Prasenjit Chakrabarty, a freelancer who works for Doordarshan, whose Thakurpur residence in south Kolkata was searched for six hours on Tuesday. NIA officials said that Chakrabarty was arrested in 2010, during the Lalgarh violence, from Jharkhand’s East Singhbhum when he used to work in a regional news channel and he is currently out on bail.

Among others whose premises were searched by the NIA on Tuesday are one Jayanta Ghosh, jute mill trade union leader Sushil Thakur, independent documentary maker Abhigyan Sarkar, trade union activist Sudipta Pal, rights activist Sipra Chakrabarty, and one Siddheswar.

“Others either provided logistic support or shelter for the active members of the banned organisation. The names of the journalist and others emerged when we were grilling a central committee member of the CPI(Maoist), Sabyasachi Ghoswami,” an NIA official told Newslaundry. The official alleged that Chakrabarty visited Maoist hotbeds in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra posing as a journalist while acting as a courier on behalf of Maoists. 

“We seized a pen drive, laptop and incriminating documents from the house,” said an officer.

After the raids, the NIA said in a statement, “The agency searched multiple locations in various districts of West Bengal over a CPI(Maoist) conspiracy to revive its presence in the eastern region of the country. The suspects were overground workers of CPI(Maoist) and were believed to have assisted the organisation’s commanders in carrying out Naxal activities.”

The NIA official alleged that the suspects who faced NIA action on Tuesday have been working under the banners of different frontal outfits like the Sangrami Krishak Mancha in several pockets of West Bengal. The NIA statement claimed that the searches led to the seizure of several incriminating documents, electronic devices, pamphlets, magazines, and handwritten letters.

The seven accused or their families could not be reached for comment.

Shah’s meeting

Amit Shah had held a meeting with state DGPs during a two-day conference that began on September 13. West Bengal was represented by DGP Rajeev Kumar, a highly decorated officer who has led several operations against Maoists leading to many arrests, and then IB additional director Jawed Shamim.

“In the meeting, the home minister made it clear that he wanted to see the country free from Maoists within the next two years. We have been asked to zero in on the sympathisers who are carrying out their activities under the banners of frontal organisations,” said another NIA official.

After the meeting, NIA sleuths from Ranchi visited West Bengal and took Goswami, who was arrested by the state police six months ago, to Ranchi. “We started interrogating him to know the names of those who are facilitating Maoists’ activities to seek the support of a section of people,” said the officer.

And armed with the information that surfaced during Goswami’s interrogation, the NIA teams conducted raids at 14 locations in Jharkhand and Bihar last week.

“We brought Goswami to Ranchi for interrogation. Pursuing the leads provided by him, we carried out search operations at 14 places in Bihar and Jharkhand 10 days ago. Today’s search operations in West Bengal were part of a follow-up of our probe,” said an NIA officer.

Condemning the NIA’s action, the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights said the raid is nothing but state repression against dissent. “All the activists are well known in the state for their dissenting voice against the state politics. We call upon people of West Bengal to rise in protest,” said APDR’s general secretary Ranjit Sur.