2 Keralites held for bid to pass on pen drive to jailed Maoists

Coimbatore: Two persons from Kerala have been arrested on the charge of attempting to pass on a pen drive to Maoists lodged in the Central Prison here, police said Tuesday.

Harihara Sharma and Rasheed of Thiruvananthapuram were detained after authorities during frisking found them carrying the pen drive hidden in clothes which they wanted to handover to the Kerala-based maoists, including Anup, last evening.

Besides Anup, four other maoists, facing a number of cases in Kerala, are under judicial remand in the prison since their arrest in 2015 near here.

Sharma and Rasheed were today produced before a Judicial Magistrate Court which remanded them to 15 days judicial custody, police said.

Cases had been registered against them on charges of attempting to smuggle banned articles inside the jail, preventing and threatening a public servant from carrying out his official duty, they said.

The two were later lodged in the central jail here, police added.