Banned Maoist outfit funded Elgar, say cops

Pune: A day after the Pune police arrested five dalit activists with alleged links to naxals in an early morning multi-city operation, the joint commissioner of police, Pune, Ravindra Kadam addressed a press conference on Thursday in which he revealed that the police had recovered classified Maoist documents from the arrested activists.

Sudhir Dhawale, organiser of Elgar Parishad, was arrested from Mumbai, Shoma Sen, Surendra Gadling and Mahesh Raut from Nagpur and Rona Wilson from Delhi.

“The Elgar Parishad which was held in Pune, during which allegedly provocative speeches were made, was funded by the banned Communist Party of India CPI (Maoist). All the activists, who were arrested, including Dha-wale, one of the Elgar organisers, have strong links with Maoists. During the searches, police found classified Maoists documents as well,” he said.

Mr Kadam said, “The Communist Party of India (Maoist), which is a banned terrorist organisation under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act has funded the Elgar Parishad. The documents, CDs, hard discs, and literature that were seized contain classified documents of Maoists. We have also found a letter that refers to the involvement of the Indian National Congress and Prakash Ambedkar with the Maoists. But investigation is at primary level,” he said. He said a few documents also referred to links between these activists and attacks on police in Chhattisgarh and Gadchiroli.“We found out a letter written by underground Maoist, Milind Teltumbde to Rona Wilson. Teltumbde has a `50 lakh booty on his head. The letter was written in January and from it we come to know that Dipu and Mangalu, members of the CPI (Maoist) were in touch with Dhawale some two months before the Elgar Parishad.”

According to him, Raut works on the directions of Maoists. Raut is PMRD fellow and has been working for grampanchyat, PESA and tribal rights.

He said, “The police was investigating the accused in the FIR lodged on January 8 this year at the Vishrambaug police station for the Bhima-Koregoan violence, which took place on January 1. During that we came across the links between these activists and naxals. Then in the same FIR, we have added UAPA Act that was not included in the original FIR.”