During the hearing of Urban Naxals case, the state prosecution presented the emails exchanged between arrested Urban Naxal P. Varavara Rao and CPI (Maoist) general secretary Ganapathy, aka Chandrashekhar. Ganapathy is one of the most wanted person by the Indian security forces for his role in several activities carried out by Naxals. The total bounty on his head is the highest currently in India, which is Rs. 36,000,000. In their exchange of emails, they raised concern over “incriminating” letters recovered by intelligence agencies.
According to the reports, the emails were exchanged after the arrest of first five alleged Urban Naxals on June 6. The district government pleader Ujjwala Pawar told additional sessions judge K D Vadane that the emails talks about ways to safeguard the flow of secret communication which has suffered a serious setback after the arrests of alleged urban naxals and to restore the confidence among the urban cadres.
According to a Times of India report, Pawar told the court, “These emails effectively bust the repeated argument by defence lawyers that the police action against the activists was taken on the basis of fake and fabricated letters”. He further added, “The two emails were intercepted on July 4 and 14. The investigators had secured two email IDs and passwords, got them forensically examined and kept the IDs under observation.”
Ujjawala Pawar also opposed bail applications of activists Shoma Sen, Surendra Gadling, Vernon Gonsalves, Sudha Bharadwaj and Arun Farreira. According to the Firstpost report, he told the sessions court that Sudha Bhardwaj was responsible for raising funds and transferring them to forest areas and also sending newly recruited cadres to the forests.
Pawar also presented a letter written by Sudha Bharadwaj which was seized by Maharashtra police. He said, “The letter addressed to one comrade Prakash talks about providing monetary support to comrades working in interiors on the lines of the financial aid being given to the stone pelters, militant organisations and their family members by Kashmiri separatists.” In the same letter, Sudha Bharadwaj demands for the funds from the underground ‘comrade’. Pawar quoting the letter said, “One of the new recruits Degree Prasad Chavan, who was sent by me, has returned from the interior after successful completion of the operation and as per the promise made to him, a financial aid needs to be given to him.”
The letter also talk about the need to provide funds to the research fellows from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in interior areas. Pawar said that Sudha Bharadwaj was endowed with the responsibility to provide funds to the interior areas. He said, “In the same letter, Bhardwaj is informing comrade Prakash that the work of Jagdalpur Chhattisgarh Legal Aide and Bastar Solidarity Network is going good.” Pawar said quoting the letter, “I myself am looking after sending the information as well as financial aid to the interior areas.”
All the five alleged Urban Naxals have been arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). They all have been arrested on the basis of evidence collected by the Pune Police following the arrest of 10 suspected members of the banned CPI (Maoist) in the Bhima-Koregaon violence case. The accused and their sympathizers claim that the arrest was an attempt to silence the voice of dissent. The cabal claimed that the five arrested alleged Urban Naxals are political prisoners. However, in its recent judgment the Supreme Court has completely rubbished the dissent argument. On September 28, The Supreme Court passed the interim order allowing the house arrest to continue for four more weeks. The five alleged Urban Naxals -Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, Sudha Bharadwaj and Gautam Navlakha- are under house arrest at their respective homes since August 29.
