They took my son’s hard disk and Kindle: Kurmanath

The Maharashtra police whisked him away when he was on his routine morning walk, huddled him in his own car and took him to his two bedroomed apartment close to the revolutionary writer and activist Varavara Rao.

Senior Journalist Kurmanath recalls his seven-hour long ordeal on 28 August morning when a large posse of police from Maharashtra and Telangana who have kept the couple under house arrest and seized their belongings including that of his teenage son’s assembled desktop and his favourite Kindle, the digital reader.

“My son has appealed to the Supreme Court that the police through an unwarranted search have taken a minor’s belongings and want them back,” Kurmanath told DH here on Monday. He says that the police were frustrated to find the couple unperturbed as there is nothing to hide from them. “My wife is the second daughter of Varavara Rao. I have realized that the police wanted to show that they won’t leave even the family members of Rao, but they have failed to intimidate us,” Kurmanath who works for a national newspaper said.

“I have been a mainstream journalist from past 24 years. I am a member of Revolutionary Writers Association (Virasam) but kept my profession away from my ideology. I have quoted my father-i- law only once in my career,” he said. The police only could find basic Telugu literature along with that of few books on Left orientation in his house, he said.

Let people pursue their ideology

“If the government can resort to this kind of undemocratic and illegitimate raids on people like me hitting on my livelihood, i.e. journalism then we will be left with no option than seeking shelter under the ideology,” Kurmanath reasons out adding that people should be allowed to pursue their ideology.

Commenting on the press conference by Pune police in which they alleged that Rao visited the funeral of a Maoist top gun in Gadchiroli in April, Kurmanath said that attending the funeral is the most humane thing that a fellow person can do. “The Supreme court said that dissent is the safety valve. I say dissent is the mainstay of democracy,” he said. He says that the letter purportedly written by one “R” involving Varavara Rao in PM’s assassination plan, is fake he and his wife knew him very well.