Mumbai: Slammed for the arrest of human rights activists following raids across the country, the Maharashtra police on Friday came up with an explanation and claimed that letters seized from one of the persons arrested for alleged Maoist links in June showed that Telugu poet Varavara Rao played a role in weapon procurement.
Rao and four others were arrested by Pune police on August 28 following raids at houses of several Left-wing activists across the country.
A letter recovered from the laptop of Rona Wilson speaks about procurement of arms and ammunition, said Param Bir Singh, ADGP, here.
"I have been in touch with designated contact in Nepal (for weapon procurement). Our comrades in Manipur can also assist in this. But, only V V (Varavara Rao) is authorised to communicate with them," Singh said, quoting one of the purportedly seized letters.
"It would benefit us to fast track the process and get equipment ready on ground. We are losing dozens and dozens of comrades in encounters in different states," the letter, allegedly written by Wilson to 'comrade Prakash', said.
Surendra Gadling (arrested in June) and Rao felt the need to inflict heavy casualties on 'enemy', something which the Maoists had not been able to do since 2013, the ADGP claimed, quoting the letter.
Wilson also sent a catalogue of weapons with the letter, which had pictures and descriptions of a Russian-made grenade launcher, Chinese-made automatic grenade launcher and a machine gun, the senior police officer claimed.
'Comrade Prakash' was a conduit between the accused and the top Maoist leader Ganapathy and the 'central committee' of the banned CPI (Maoist), Singh said.
The letters would be copied on 'hard drives' and these hard drives were then couriered, the ADGP said, adding that the drives would be password-protected.
The police are also probing the funding which Maoist received from abroad, he said.
Singh also said one of the seized letters showed that Maoists suffered due to demonetisation of November 2016.
Gadling, in reply to a letter by Rao in March 2017, said he could not distribute funds in Gadchiroli (Maharashtra) and Chhattisgarh as police were carrying out frequent checks in the wake of the note ban, the ADGP said.
Singh also said some letters indicated that Maoists were helping some militant groups and 'stone throwers' in Jammu and Kashmir.
Pune police on August 28 arrested Rao, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Sudha Bharadwaj and Gautam Navalakha in Delhi for alleged links with the Maoists.
The Supreme Court ordered the next day that the five should be kept under house arrest till September 6.
Several intellectuals and activists like Aruna Roy, Arundhati Roy, Prashant Bhushan and Bezwada Wilson had protested against the raids and arrests of the activists.
