NIA raids suspected Maoist hideouts in southern States

Officials of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) launched simultaneous searches at suspected Maoist training centres and hideouts in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka since early Tuesday in the Edakkara Maoist case.

On Tuesday, the NIA reportedly raided the home of Dinesh, a doctor in Coimbatore's Puliyakulam who is allegedly a Maoist supporter, and another man named Danish.

Another NIA team, meanwhile, combed the residence of 50-year-old U Murugesan, brother of the slain Maoist U Karthik alias Kannan, on Rice Mill Road at Kallur in Pudukkottai district. Karthik was killed in a police encounter at Attapadi in Kerala on October 28, 2019. The team has seized two books on Maoism, photocopies of Karthik's death certificate and the voters' identity card of Murugesan, a farm labourer, from the house.

Officials of the agency have been raiding the locations across all the three southern states since Tuesday morning. They included 12 premises in Tamil Nadu of the accused Maoists in the districts of Chennai, Coimbatore, Theni, Ramanathapuram, Salem, Kanyakumari, and Krishnagiri. Searches went on in three locations in Kerala's Wayanad, Thrissur, and Kannur, and five locations in Karnataka in the districts of Chikmagalur, Udupi and Shivamogga.

As per a report by The Hindu, the raids were triggered by specific intelligence inputs on people being indoctrinated into the party's ideology through propaganda material. It also said that, according to NIA officials, videos used to train the cadre were also found.

According to the statement from the agency, the proscribed terrorist organisation conducted a training camp, arms training, flag hoisting and celebrations for formation day of CPI (Maoist) during the last week of September 2016 in the Nilambur forest area "and also for engaging in anti-national activities, threatening the unity, integrity and security of India."