By Special Correspondent, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: “The Communist Party of India (Maoist) is an underground banned Terrorist organisation which aims to overthrow the Government of India through the means of protracted people’s war. It was founded on September 21, 2004, through the merger of the CPI (ML) People’s War and the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC). During the merger, a provisional Central Committee was constituted, with the erstwhile People’s War Group leader Muppala Lakshmana Rao, alias ‘Ganapathi’ as General Secretary,” reads one of the charge sheets submitted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) before the NIA Special Judge, Kolkata.
Despite these points on record, Ganapathi being regarded as the most wanted Maoist by the Indian security agencies and the NIA announcing Rs 15 lakh cash for providing any information leading to his arrest, none of the agency has till date has approached INTERPOL to issue Red Corner Notice (RCN) against his name so as to acquire foreign countries’ help in case Ganapathi escapes out of India.
(Courtesy: IE)
India Today quoted one of the Intelligence sources as saying that the Maoist supremo Ganapathi – at the post-election review of the CPI(Maoist) politburo meeting in June 2009 – “fine-tuned the strategy for expanding Maoist reach and exhausting security forces by dispersing them over a wider area.
He is not alone to have been missed by the India’s elite investigation agencies in getting INTERPOL assistance for the arrest but many more senior and full timer politburo members of CPI (M) including Nambala Keshava Rao @ Basava Raju and Thippiri Tirupati @ Deoji have not been considered to seek INTERPOL assistance in issuing RCN although NIA declared cash reward of Rs 10 lakh each on their heads.
“The highest decision making body of the party is the Politburo, comprising 13 or 14 members, which include Mupalla Laxmana Rao @ Ganapathi, Nambala Keshava Rao @ Basava Raju and others. The Central Committee of the party, which takes command from the Politburo and passes on the information to its members, has 32 members, including Thippiri Tirupati @ Deoji and others,” the charge sheet reads at another place.
Not finding these important faces of CPI (M) in the international ‘wanted’ list of INTERPOL is surprising considering the report released last year by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) – which provides a comprehensive summary of the key global trends and patterns in global terrorism – that placed India on the 6th position in the Global Terrorism Index (GTI). The index was produced on the basis of data obtained and studied from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) for the year 2013.
GTI report should have been a clear indication to the Indian security agencies to redraw their priorities because these are often reportedly found more concerned about Islamic extremism than Maoist activities in the country. But it does not seem to have happened.
In addition to these missing names on the INTERPOL’s radar, there are three more fugitives belonging to right wing activities – Jay Prakash, Amit and Suresh Nair, who are alleged to have involvement in committing bomb blasts at Goa (2009), Samjhauta Express (2007) and Ajmer Dargah (2008) – details for whom too are not provided to the INTERPOL by the National Central Bureau (Interpol), New Delhi – NCBI – under the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Having failed to arrest these accused in the bomb blast cases, NIA has issued cash rewards of Rs 5 lakh and Rs 2 lakh for information about Amit @ Prince and Suresh Nair respectively. NIA is investigating these cases since 2010.
A quick analysis of data from India’s two most crucial central agencies viz. CBI and NIA, it shows on one hand, the NCBI has not provided to the INTERPOL details of above mentioned fugitives involved in Maoist and other terrorism activities in India. On the other hand, it has not missed any major name of the fugitives alleged to be members of Lashkar e Taiba (LeT), Indian Mujahideen (IM), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), Harkat-ul-Jehadi-Islami (HuJI) and other Islamist extremist banned organizations.
INTERPOL is an International Criminal Police Organization which consists of 188 member countries who have agreed to “ensure and promote the widest possible assistance between all criminal police authorities in the prevention and suppression of ordinary law crimes.”
India is one of the oldest members of Interpol, having joined the organization in 1949.The Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation is the ex-officio head of the NCB-India. All matters relating to the NCB India are, however, dealt with by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. All the security agencies in India approach CBI for sending details to the Interpol for obtaining the RCN in tracing and arresting any fugitive for the crime committed in the territory of India.
Related:
Maoists’ activities place India 6th on Global Terrorism Index