JOIN USThe Union Home Ministry has listed Maoists in the same category as Pakistan-sponsored terrorists.
A list of 56 “most wanted” terrorists, released in the last week by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), includes top Maoist leader Ganapati alias Muppala Lakshman Rao, secretary of the CPI (Maoist).
On Friday, the NIA list, comprising white-collar criminals and extremists, was revised and updated. Now, the database includes the portraits, history of crimes, cash awards and pending cases against the wanted persons.
Criminals and the Maoists wanted in illegal arms and explosives procurement, white collar economic offences, cyber crimes also figure in the list.
NIA sources said the Home Ministry has declared that Left-wing ultras are terrorists and hence their names and profiles are also included in the date base of terrorists in public domain.
Besides Ganapati, the NIA also listed Basavaraj alias Sambala Keshav Rao, Devji , Somji, Prabhakar and other top leaders and CPI (Maoist) central committee members, particularly those heading guerrilla units in West Bengal, Jharkhand and AOB (Andhra-Odisha Border).
The NIA has been entrusted with the case of Maoist technical committee chief Sadanala Ramakrishna, who was apprehended by the Kolkatta Special Task Force in March 2012 along with eight other associates. They had also seized indigenously manufactured components of rocket launchers, rocket propelled grenades and 51mm mortars and also spare parts of latest SLRs.
A probe revealed that all the spare parts were secretly produced in several workshops by Maoists in Pune, Rourkela, Indore, Bhopal and Bhubaneswar.
“All the components were clandestinely transported to Abujhmad in Chhattisgarh and assembled into finished weapons, NIA officials said. The designs for the rocket launchers were generated and supplied by Asim Kumar Harnath Bhattacharya, a Maoist from West Bengal. The components were manufactured in workshops between 2002-2006 and assembled at Chhattisgarh till 2009,” NIA sources said.
China connection
NIA officials said the Maoists were also hand in glove with the extremist groups of the North-East in procuring weapons such as assault rifles, pistols, explosives and also rocket mortar shells from China. “In view of national and international ramifications of the CPI (Maoist) actions, they were all not ranked on a par with terrorists and made part of the list of ‘most wanted’ men,” said a senior NIA investigator who is now part of the team probing the Dilsukhnagar blasts.
Popular writer and VIRASAM (revolutionary writers association) leader P Varavara Rao has been very critical of the governments placing Left-wing extremists on a par with Terrorists. “Extremists are political activists and not ISI-sponsored Terrorists,” he said demanding the Union Home Ministry to clarify its stand.