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NIA chargesheets another key accused in Ballia Naxal conspiracy case
An NIA spokesperson said that the supplementary chargesheet filed in the 2023 case before the NIA Special Court of Lucknow had the name of Santosh Verma alias Mantosh, a resident of Kotwali area of Ballia.
Another key accused in the Ballia Naxal conspiracy case has been chargesheeted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Saturday for participating in CPI (Maoist) activities aimed at destabilising the government, confirmed NIA officials.
An NIA spokesperson said that the supplementary chargesheet filed in the 2023 case before the NIA Special Court of Lucknow had the name of Santosh Verma alias Mantosh, a resident of Kotwali area of Ballia.
He said Verma has been accused of being an active cadre of the banned CPI (Maoist) organisation and 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 the recruitment of new ground workers for CPI (Maoist).
The spokesperson informed that the case was originally registered on August 16, 2023, at the Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) police station in Lucknow, following the arrest of five persons in a raid at the house of one Ram Murat. He said several incriminating documents, literature and pamphlets related to CPI(Maoist), along with arms and ammunition as well as digital devices were recovered from the possession of the accused.
He said investigations revealed that the proscribed organisation was using frontal outfits to propagate Naxal ideology in the districts bordering Bihar. He said it was with this aim that they had organised a meeting at Ram Murat’s house to further their motives.
He said the NIA, which took over the investigation on November 10 last year, had earlier charge-sheeted four other accused in the case on February 9. He said the agency’s probe so far has revealed that leaders, cadres and sympathisers, over ground workers (OGWs) of CPI (Maoist) were engaged in various nefarious activities to re-energise the outfit in the Northern Regional Bureau, comprising UP, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.
