NIA investigation of UAPA case justified: Union Minister

Union Minister V Muraleedharan on Monday said the admission by the ruling CPI (M) that the two youths booked under UAPA are Maoists was enough reason for the National Investigating Agency (NIA) to take over and probe the case.

While talking to the media at the Karipur international airport here, he wondered why the CPI(M) was opposing a NIA probe in the case against the two youths, who have been branded as "Maoists". The minister of state for External Affairs' statement came a day after CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had said that the youths--Alan Suhaib and Taha Fazal, both students, used to "work with the CPI(M) and the Maoists similtaneously and were expelled from the party".

"They are not CPI(M) members anymore. The party has taken action against them," Kodiyeri had told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday. Fazal (24) and Suhaib (20)--students of journalism and law respectively and CPI(M)'s branch committee members, were arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act on November 2 last year from Kozhikode, leading to widespread criticism in the Left-ruled state. The case was taken over by the NIA, but Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, seeking to hand over the probe to the local police, saying the investigation was going in the right direction.