The National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested one person after conducting raids across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on Monday, October 2, in the Munchingiputtu case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). After raiding 62 locations in the two states, NIA officials arrested Chandra Narasimhulu, state executive committee member of the Pragathiseela Karmika Samakya (Progressive Labour Union) from Sri Sathyasai district of Andhra Pradesh. The agency said it also seized a pistol along with 14 rounds from the location.
The Munchingiputtu case pertains to a TV journalist named Pangi Naganna who was accused of being a Maoist ‘courier’ and arrested by the Munchingiputtu police in Andhra Pradesh’s Alluri Sitharamaraju district in November 2020. The police alleged that Naganna was caught in possession of “Maoist revolutionary literature books, medicines, red colour banner cloth, electrical wire bundles, Nippo batteries and pamphlets”, to be handed over to the Maoist cadres.
Naganna was booked under UAPA and various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), along with 63 others. He had then allegedly named several activists whom he accused of running frontal organisations for the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist). Many activists including VS Krishna of Human Rights Forum, advocate V Raghunath of AP Civil Liberties Committee, Chiluka Chandrasekhar, Dappu Ramesh, Varalaxmi of Virasam and others were subsequently named in the FIR.
In a press release, NIA said that its officials also seized Rs 13 lakh from one of the searched premises in Kadapa district, while “Maoist literature and documents” were seized from other locations. The raids covered 53 locations in the districts of Guntur, Palnadu, Vijayawada, Rajahmundry, Prakasam, Bapatla, Eluru, East Godavari, Dr BR Ambedkar Konaseema, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, Nellore, Tirupati, Kadapa, Sri Sathyasai, Anantapur, and Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh. Nine locations were raided in Telangana in the districts of Hyderabad, Mahabubnagar, Hanmakonda, Rangareddy and Adilabad.
The NIA said there was a conspiracy involving various “frontal organisations” which were trying to “further the activities of the proscribed CPI (Maoist) outfit,”' and they expect Chandra Narasimhulu’s interrogation to give further information on this. It named various civil society organisations — Civil Liberties Committee (CLC), Amarula Bandhu Mitrula Sangham (ABMS), Chaitanya Mahila Sangham (CMS), Kula Nirmulana Porata Samithi (KNPS), Patriotic Democratic Movement (PDM), Pragathiseela Karmika Samakya (PKS), Praja Kala Mandali (PKM), Revolutionary Writers Association (RWA) or Viplava Rachaitala Sangam (VIRASAM), Human Rights Forum (HRF), Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP) and Indian Association of Peoples Lawyers (IAPL) — as such “frontal organisations”. NIA said its investigations so far revealed that leaders and members of these organisations were “extending support to the CPI (Maoist).”
According to the NIA, Naganna’s interrogation revealed that the items found in his possession, which he was allegedly going to hand over to Maoists, were given to him by the leaders of these “frontal organisations”.
In May, the NIA had filed a chargesheet against seven accused before the Special Court, Vijayawada, and five of the accused belonged to ABMS, CMS, PKS, PDM and PKM.