NIA conducts raid on residences of right activists in Telangana

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday conducted raids on the residences of right activists from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

The raids were conducted against activists who are members of Human Rights Forum, a civil rights organisation, Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, Virasam (Revolutionary Writers' Association) and others, in connection with the Munchingiputtu case. Last year, a case was registered against a journalist Naganna for allegedly acting as an informer to Maoists. Later, the case was sent to NIA and on March 7, the officials registered a fresh FIR.

The NIA registered cases against 64 people including Maoist committee member and Andhra-Odisha incharge Akkiraju Haragopal alias RK, secretary Gajarla Ravi alias Ganesh and Naganna as the prime accused.

On Wednesday, searches were carried out at the residence of VS Krishna, co-ordination committee member of Human Rights Forum for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, advocate V Raghunath, a member of Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, Chiluka Chandrasekhar, Dappu Ramesh, Varalaxmi of Virasam, Pinakapani from Kurnool, Arun alias Somasekhara Sharma, advocate K Padma and SK Chalam and others who were named in the FIR registered by the Visakhapatnam Rural Police Station.

All were arrested and will be produced before the court today.