Hyderabad: The Maharashtra Police on Tuesday arrested Maoist activist Varavara Rao here, with a family member quoting the detectives as saying that he was linked with an alleged plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A police team from Pune arrested the revolutionary writer after searching his house for nearly eight hours. He was produced before a court, which directed the police to produce him in a court in Pune by 5 pm on Wednesday.
Earlier, the police conducted simultaneous searches at Rao’s house and houses of his two daughters, other relatives and friends including two journalists.
Mild tension prevailed at Rao’s house in Gandhinagar as his supporters gathered outside raising slogans against the police. The local police cordoned off the area.
The Maharashtra Police seized some documents from Rao’s house, while a laptop, hard disk and other material were seized during searches at his relatives’ residences.
In June, the police in Pune had registered a case after a letter mentioning assassination plot was recovered from one of the five persons arrested in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence.
The letter written by a person identified only as ‘R’ reportedly mentions a plot to kill Modi on the lines of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
It also referred to requirement of Rs 8 crore to purchase a M-4 rifle and four lakh rounds to execute the plot. The letter reportedly mentions Varavara Rao’s name as the one who will arrange the funds.
The letter addressed to a Maoist leader Prakash was recovered from rights activist Rona Jacob Wilson, when he was arrested in Delhi.
Varavara Rao, who heads “Veerasam” – an association of revolutionary writers – had strongly denied the allegations. He had termed it as an attempt by the central government to check the falling popularity graph of Narendra Modi.
Meanwhile, condemning arrests of various activists and journalists such as Sudha Bharadwaj, Varavara Rao and Gautam Navlakha, the CPI-M on Tuesday alleged that the police have been targeting Dalit rights activists an intellectuals after Bhima Koregaon riots.
“The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) strongly protests the raids conducted by police authorities on the homes of various civil rights and human rights activists and Left intellectuals,” the party said in a statement.
“Ever since the Bhima Koregoan violence against Dalits, the Maharashtra Police along with central agencies has been targeting Dalit rights activists and lawyers who have been taking up their cases. False charges have been levelled and the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act invoked,” it said.
The police conducted raids in Mumbai, Delhi, Ranchi, Goa and Hyderabad and arrested some of the activists like Sudha Bharadwaj, Varavara Rao and journalist Gautam Navlakha. The police also took in its possession laptops, mobiles and some papers from the homes of those raided.
“These constitute a brazen attack on democratic rights and civil liberties. The CPI-M demands withdrawal of the cases against these activists and their immediate release,” the CPI-M said.
On January 1 this year, violent clashes broke out between the Dalits and right-wing Hindutva groups in Bhima Koregaon on the outskirts of Pune where the former had gathered in large numbers to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Bhima Koregaon battle in which the Peshwas were defeated by a British Army that had Mahar soldiers.