The Pune police on Thursday have presented a shocking claim before the Supreme Court regarding the case of urban naxals arrested from Maharashtra. The Pune police have alleged that a letter recovered from one of the five arrested from the Urban Naxals in Pune reveals a plan to ambush security forces in six places by the banned organisation CPI Maoists. The Pune police have also pointed out that four of the six planned ambush attacks were indeed carried out by the cadres of the CPI (Maoist). The Pune police team was appearing before a bench presided by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra who was joined by Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud. Additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta presented the letters on behalf of the Pune police to the SC which showed that there was a “clear link between them and CPI (Maoist).”
The SC is currently conducting hearings and has reserved the verdicts on a petition filed by historian Romila Thapar and four others which challenges the arrests and demands SIT probe into the charges levied on the five alleged Urban Naxals. Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Varavara Rao, Vernon Fernandes and Arun Ferreira were arrested by the Pune police for alleged involvement in planning attacks on the life of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other naxal terrorism related incidents. Additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta read out from the submissions made by the Pune police and argued that the arrests had nothing to do with dissent with the incumbent leadership. Mehta went on to refer to a document recovered from the computers of one of the activists which according to him termed the government forces as the “enemy” and talked about shattering the morale of the security forces by attacking them through ambush. The recipients of the letter had been asked to provide logistics support to the Maoist cadres which were supposed to carry out the planned attacks. After reading out the letter Mehta said, “Please take note how the author of the letter is telling about cadre not being able to move freely because of checking by security forces and seeks guidance from the recipient on conducting bigger attacks. Please note the six places they are talking about carrying out ambush on security forces, and actually four ambushes took place.”
Citing another 100 page document prepared by the CPI Maoist eastern region bureau, Mehta said that the document spoke about implementing propaganda where its killed cadres would be branded as innocent tribals. The document also congratulates and boasts of an attack on the security forces wherein 25 ‘enemy’ forces lost their lives. Mehta said, “The arrests have nothing to do with dissent. Anyone can dissent against government policies, write articles and protest. But terming government forces as enemy is surely no dissent. Planning to ambush government forces can never be called dissent.” The SC has asked both sides to submit their written submissions by Monday.
The Pune police had launched a nationwide crackdown against the Urban Naxals in August this year. The Maharashtra Police ADG (Law and Order) Parambir Singh had defended the arrest of the five Urban Naxals citing that the arrests had taken place only after proving their links with banned Maoist groups. This submission in the SC by the Pune police is an extension of the crackdown on the Urban Naxals.