MUMBAI: While addressing the media over the recent Bhima-Koregaon raids, the Maharashtra police stated that the collected evidence establishes a “conclusive proof” to link the arrested activists to Maoists and their role in facilitating weapons and funding.
“We have thousands of letters which show how these people were involved in the underground movement, how students from Jawaharlal Nehru University were being mobilised to overthrow the elected government. All these letters just make the Maoists links clearer,” said Param Bir Singh, Additional Director General, Maharashtra Police.
Singh read a letter exchanged between an activist arrested earlier in June, which spoke of planning “another Rajiv Gandhi-like incident to end Modi-raj”. Some of the letters, he said, spoke of planning “some big action” which would attract attention.
“A letter written from Delhi-based activist Rona Wilson to Maoist leader Prakash on July 30, 2017, spoke of requirement of Rs. 8 crore for grenade launchers with four lakh rounds”, Singh said.
Rona Wilson was one of the five activists arrested in June in connection with violence between Dalits and upper caste Marathas at a mass event held at Bhima Koregaon near Pune.
Meanwhile, the activists – Maoist ideologue Varavara Rao, lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, activists Arun Fereira, Gautam Navlakha and Vernon Gonsalves, were monitored closely for almost a week and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was briefed about evidence before the raids and house arrest on the Supreme Court’s orders on Tuesday.