New Delhi, September 16
A key accused in a Balia (UP) Maoist conspiracy has been chargesheeted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for participating in CPI (Maoist) activities aimed at destabilizing the Government of India.
The supplementary chargesheet filed before the NIA Special Court, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, names Santosh Verma alias Mantosh, a resident of Kotwali area of Balia.
He has been charged as an active cadre of the banned CPI (Maoist) organisation, and, as per the chargesheet, was associating with other members of the outfit in conspiring and indulging in disruptive activities aimed at threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India. He was also actively involved in recruitment of new cades for CPI (Maoist), officials said.
The case was originally registered on 16th August 2023 at ATS Police Station Lucknow, following the arrest of five persons in a raid at the house of one Ram Murat, the previous day. Several incriminating documents, literature and pamphlets related to CPI(Maoist), along with arms & ammunition and digital devices were recovered from the possession of the accused.
Investigations revealed that the proscribed organisation was using frontal outfits to propagate Naxal ideology in the districts bordering Bihar. It was with this aim that they had organised a meeting at Ram Murat’s house to further their sinister motives.
NIA, which took over the investigation on 10th November, had earlier chargesheeted four other accused in the case on 9th February this year. The agency’s probe so far has revealed that leaders, cadres and sympathizers/Over Ground Workers (OGWs) of CPI (Maoist) were engaged in various nefarious activities in an effort to re-energize the outfit in the Northern Regional Bureau, comprising UP, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.
