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The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed a chargesheet against a top Maoist leader of the banned Communist Party of India Maoist (CPI Maoist) in connection with the case about the promotion of the Left Wing Insurgency in Telangana and other parts of the country.
Top Maoist leader Sanjay Deepak Rao, aka Vikas, aka Anand aka Aravind, a member of the proscribed Maoist outfit has been chargesheeted in a special NIA court, Hyderabad on Monday, March 11 in connection with a case re-registered against him by the central investigation agency in January 2024.
According to the details shared by the agency, Sanjay Rao was active in furthering the activities of the outlawed CPI Maoist by recruiting and radicalising other individuals to join the Maoist outfit in a systematic process alongside conspiring with other Maoist cadres.
The accused had also raised funds for the purpose of procuring arms and ammunition and organising terror camps in the Western Ghats Special Zonal Committee (WGSZC) of CPI Maoist as part of the conspiracy, according to a press note issued on Monday.
Based on the aforementioned details that has surfaced during the investigation, the NIA has filed chargesheet against the accused under sections 121A, 120B, 465, 471 of Indian Penal Code (IPC), section 25(1-A) of Arms Act, 1989 and section 17, 18, 18-B, 20, 38, 39, 40 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
Who is Sanjay Deepak Rao ?
According to the information shared by the police, Sanjay Deepak Rao, a resident of Shivgandh Nagar under Ambar Nath East police station limits of Thane district of Maharashtra, is an active member of the all powerful Central Committee (CC) of the banned CPI Maoist who has been associated with the banned outfit for a long.
A B.Tech graduate from Jammu and Kashmir, Rao got inclined towards the separatist movement during his college years and co-founded the Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist Naxalbari group in subsequent years.
After the formation of the group, Rao was made in-charge of the Maharashtra state of the said outfit, He was later arrested for his unlawful activities and then released in the year 2000. After being released from jail, Rao again started many underground activities and was again arrested in 2005. He came out on bail in 2007 and kept working covertly.
In 2009, Rao started discussions with the CPI Maoist for merger of his CPI ML (Naxalbari group) for which he started visiting Maad division of Abujhmad in Chhattisgarh frequently.
Subsequently, Rao was included in the CPI Maoist’s CC when the group was merged into the CPI Maoists in 2014. He was given the charge of the secretary of the Western Ghats special zonal committee of the CPI Maoist in 2021 and was reportedly active in the Western Ghats region since then.
Arrest of Deepak Rao
Rao was on the radar of the security agencies and was also put on human and technical surveillance, following which the Cyberabad unit of Telangana police apprehended him from Kukatpally Basti in September last year.
Rao was nabbed on specific intel by the Cyberabad police when he was reportedly on his way to meet the general secretary of the outlawed CPI Maoist and other fellow members of the CC in Maad region of the Chhattisgarh. The police team also seized a revolver with ammunition, multiple fabricated Aadhaar cards, laptop, literature, and cash from Rao’s possession.
At the time of his arrest, Rao was wanted by police in several States including Tamil Nādu, Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra, he was also wanted by the NIA and was carrying a bounty of Rs25 lakhs on his head.
Upon his arrest, a case was subsequently registered against him at the KPHB police station in Telangana which was later re-registered by the NIA on January 3rd this year.
Days after the arrest of Rao, the Maoist outfit claimed in a press release that Rao was en route for his treatment of his deteriorating health and was wrongly framed for his association with the cause of revolution.
The press note issued by the Maoists also disclosed that Sanjay Rao had been actively involved in augmenting the party’s ideology for a long time and was holding a key position as secretary of ‘Dakshin Sub Zonal Bureau’ of the outlawed extremist group.
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