Osmania varsity professor arrested for alleged maoist links

The Telangana Police has on Saturday arrested one associate professor of the Osmania University for suspected links with the Maoists.

Chinthakindi Kasim was named in an Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act case, combined with Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 120(B), 121(A) and 124 (A) relating to criminal conspiracy and sedition. The case was registered in 2016 at Mulugu police station in northern Telangana.

Kasim is associated with and is presently one of the office-bearers of the Revolutionary Writers Association, to which Maoist sympathiser Varavara Rao also belongs.

Rao was arrested and lodged in Pune’s Yerawada jail in the 2018 Elgaar Parishad case for alleged links with the Maoists. Rao was reportedly taken into custody by the Karnataka police last year in connection with a 2005 case of Maoist attack that killed policemen in Pavagada.

Snehalatha, Kasim’s wife, refuted any links of his husband with the Maoists. “The police barged into our house early in the morning with a search warrant and turned it upside down, scaring kids and taking away some of our belongings. My husband is now being arrested in an old case where some of his writings were found in a car involved in an accident.”

Some students who protested the arrest at the OU residential quarters were controlled by the local police. A police team of Siddipet Commissionerate conducted the search, made the arrest and took Kasim to Gajwel to produce before a court there for judicial remand.

According to a PTI report, Joel Davis, the Siddipet Police Commissioner said that they have "incriminating information" that Kashim was in regular touch with the Maoist leaders.

The professor is allegedly working as an organiser of "united front vertical" of Maoists in Telangana. "He is the coordinator for funding and other things," the police official was further quoted.