Three members of Chaitanya Mahila Sangham (CMS) were arrested by National Investigation Agency (NIA) authorities here on Wednesday on charge of motivating and recruiting youngsters for the proscribed Communist Party of India (Maoists).
Incriminating material including digital devices were seized during the searches before arresting Dongari Devendra, Dubasi Swapna and Chukka Shilpa, the NIA officials said. Initially, a case was registered by Peddabayalu police of Visakhapatnam district in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh State following a complaint lodged by the family members of a nursing student Radha on January 3.
The student’s family charged that members and leaders of CMS had lured Radha into revolutionary movements and made her join the Maoists operating in Andhar-Odisha border forests. Recruitment of the student was a conspiracy of activists or leaders of CMS, a frontal organisation of the Maoists, the NIA authorities said, noting that they re-registered the case five months later and took up its investigation.
Devendra and Shilpa were earlier arrested on charges of links with Maoists. They were lodged in prison and later came out on bail. Shilpa is practicing as lawyer in Hyderabad. Condemning their arrest, Telangana State Civil Liberties Committee president and retired professor Gaddam Laxman urged the government to immediately release the three women.
Describing the cases registered against against the CMS activists as illegal, he appealed to the police to drop all cases registered against them. “CMS is not a banned organisation,” he said. A police officer associated with the investigation of the case and seeking anonymity, however, said the student was taken to the interior forests of Visakhaptnam and Odisha border for providing medical aid to ailing Maoists.
“She was apparently influenced by Gajarla Ravi, Maoists Andhra Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee secretary to join their movement,” the officer said. Since then the student did not return home. Her family members eventually lodged a complaint with the police in Visakhapatnam.
