NIA raids civil liberties activist V Raghunath’s house in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: The National Investigation Agency on late Wednesday evening conducted simultaneous searches at the houses of advocates, civil liberties activists and writers in seven different places in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, sources said.

Searches were conducted by NIA sleuths, who were accompanied by Andhra Pradesh police, at Telangana civil liberties committee vice-president and high-court advocate V Raghunath’ residence in Dilsukhnagar, Hyderabad.

“The searches have been going on since 6 pm. The NIA authorities seized the laptop and the computer of Raghunath and inspected them,” confirmed the committee’s president G Laxman. He also condemned the ‘illegal raids’ by the NIA on the advocates and other rights activists and writers.

Similar searches were conducted in the residence of revolutionary singer Dappu Ramesh in Hyderabad. They continued until midnight.

In Andhra Pradesh, raids were conducted in five different locations. The residences of AP Civil Liberties Committee state president Chittibabu in Rajahmundry; Pinaka Pani, secretary of Revolutionary Writers Association (Virasam, founded by Maoist ideologie and Telugu poet Vara Vara Rao) in Kurnool; another Virasam leader Varalaxmi in Kadapa; advocate K Padma and her colleague K S Chalam in Visakhapatnam were raided by the NIA officials on Wednesday.

The raids could be a part of the investigation following the arrest of one Pangi Naganna in Vishakapatnam in November last year. The police had then seized several documents pertaining to the Maoist party from the bag of Naganna, who claimed to be a journalist.

They suspected that Naganna might be acting as a courier for Maoists and handed over the case to the NIA later. The NIA registered a case on March 7, 2021 and began the probe.

In all, 64 persons were included in the case as suspects including Naganna, the first information report filed by NIA said.