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Saibaba used JNU and DU as Maoist recruitment hubs: Maharashtra cop

Ashwin Aghor | Updated on: 14 February 2017, 5:42 IST

Amid the brouhaha over the Jawaharlal Nehru University being branded as 'anti-national', a police officer in Maharashtra claims there's documentary proof that JNU as well as Delhi University are Maoist recruitment hubs.

Ravindra Kadam, the Inspector General of Police, Anti-Naxal Operations, in Gadchiroli, is supervising the investigation into GN Saibaba, the former Delhi University professor accused of being a Maoist.

Kadam says documents recovered from Saibaba suggest that Maoist cadres were regularly recruited from these two universities in the national capital.

Also read - Judge cancels Saibaba's bail, charges Arundhati with contempt

"It has emerged from investigations into Saibaba's activities over the last few years that Maoists groups across the country have been regularly recruiting JNU and DU students. There is a large number of students who are radicalised by the Left-wing ideology. These students are in regular contact with separatist groups from Jammu and Kashmir," Kadam said.

Guiding a violent revolution

Kadam said there was evidence to suggest that a large section of students at JNU and DU talk about revolution through violence, and that Saibaba used to guide them.

"For example, Hem Mishra, who was arrested in August 2013, was Saibaba's student, and was carrying a coded message on a microchip, to be delivered to Maoist group in Gadchiroli. Mishra is a JNU alumnus. He worked as a 'cultural activist' to cover up his Maoist links. He met Saibaba during one of his visits to JNU, and the latter was instrumental in radicalising several students," Kadam said.

Kadam also named another of Saibaba's students, Rituparna Goswami, a Guwahati native who has completed his PhD from JNU and is currently active in underground Maoist activities under the alias 'Navin'. He is known as 'professor revolutionary' in Maoist circles. A very close associate of Maoist leader Ganapathy, Goswami works as coordinator between urban sympathisers and the underground Maoists, Kadam said.

Saibaba was out on bail till two months ago. He had to surrender to the Gadchiroli police after the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court cancelled his bail.

More in Catch - Bombay HC rejects ailing DU professor GN Saibaba's temporary bail plea

Believing in an ideology, even Maoism, is not a crime: Hem Mishra

First published: 17 February 2016, 9:42 IST
 
Ashwin Aghor @CatchNews

Journalist based in Mumbai.