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NIA searches houses of Maoist ‘sympathisers’
A team of NIA officials from Chhattisgarh came to Alakurapadu village of Tanguturu block in Prakasam district and conducted searches in the residence of Akkiraju Sirisha, wife of former central committee member of the Maoist party Akkiraju Haragopal alias Ramakrishna or RK, who died from kidney-related ailments in Chhattisgarh forests on October 14 last year.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday conducted simultaneous search operations at the residences of alleged sympathisers of CPI (Maoist) in Andhra Pradesh’s Prakasam and Vijayawada districts on the suspicion that they were extending support to the outlawed party, a police official familiar with the development said.
A team of NIA officials from Chhattisgarh came to Alakurapadu village of Tanguturu block in Prakasam district and conducted searches in the residence of Akkiraju Sirisha, wife of former central committee member of the Maoist party Akkiraju Haragopal alias Ramakrishna or RK, who died from kidney-related ailments in Chhattisgarh forests on October 14 last year.
While the local police forces cordoned off the entire area preventing the neighbours and the local media from entering the premises, the NIA sleuths conducted search operation at Sirisha’s residence.
“The NIA authorities questioned me about the presence of some unknown persons in my house. I have not committed any crime. I have been in a state of depression ever since my husband died and am suffering from health issues. In the name of searches, the NIA authorities are mentally harassing me,” Sirisha told reporters.
Simultaneously, another team of NIA authorities conducted searches at the residence of Viplava Rachayithala Sangham (Virasam) or revolutionary writers’ association secretary G Kalyan Rao, a close associate of popular writer P Varavara Rao, who is presently on bail in Mumbai in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence case.
Kalyan Rao is also the brother-in-law of the deceased Maoist party central committee member RK. He, along with RK, took part in the 2004 talks between the Andhra Pradesh government and the Maoist party.
The NIA sleuths conducted searches in the residence of another Virasam member Doddi Prabhakar and another house at Ajit Singh Nagar in Vijayawada on the suspicion that four youths from Chhattisgarh had been staying there for the last one year.
“It is believed that the youths had been involved in transfer of money from Vijayawada to the accounts of the Maoist leaders in Chhattisgarh,” the police official quoted above said.
