The raids were in connection with the 2021 Munchingiputtu CPI (Maoist) conspiracy case. Devices and literature belonging to functionaries and lawyers of the Indian Association of People’s Lawyers and Human Rights Forum, along with various other rights bodies were seized.
Officials of the National Investigating Agency (NIA) arrived in groups of four and five in 62 locations across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh on October 2, in coordinated raids at the homes of human rights activists and researchers.
Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. They conducted coordinated raids on houses and premises associated with members of the Indian Association of People’s Lawyers, the Human Rights Forum, the Civil Liberties Committee, the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners
— Auchitya Thakkar (@At016778) October 6, 2023
The raid teams – comprising of NIA officers from Delhi and the local police – arrived between 5.30 am and 6 am on the day, and stayed at the locations till afternoon.
One such raid was carried out at the house of a senior lawyer and rights activist Durba Suresh Kumar. Suresh, also a member of the Indian Association of People’s Lawyers, told The Wire that he was woken up by the NIA sleuths.
“I was woken up by the officers. They had flown down, along with panch witnesses. But the local police were not informed,” Suresh said. The local police, Suresh says, joined much later. From Suresh’s house, the NIA seized his phone and a 12-page pamphlet of the People’s War Group, dating back to 1993.
Suresh says for the longest period, he was not aware of the nature of the raid and the exact case in connection with which it was being conducted. The NIA later informed him that the ongoing raids were a part of the “Munchingiputtu CPI (Maoist) conspiracy case” – in connection with which similar raids were carried out at the residences of many rights activists and academics in 2021.
Join us & raise voice today at High Court 6 th Gate at lunch hours 1.30 pm Observing Emergency Day & Demand withdrawal of cases on Defending Lawyers & Activists. Scrap UAPA, NIA, TSPSA & All Repressive Laws lAPL Indian Association of People's Lawyers invites U all pic.twitter.com/shhtKDX5gm
— Dr.B.Karthik Navayan (@Navayan) June 26, 2023
Suresh was served a notice under section 160 of the CrPC, asking him to be present before the NIA as a witness. This, Suresh points out, is both “unlawful” and “unethical”.
“I am a counsel for many persons named in the case. I represent them in the high court and now the NIA wants me to appear before them as a witness in the same case,” Suresh told The Wire over a phone call.
This is not the first time that a lawyer has been named an accused or asked to be a witness in the same case they have appeared as counsel in, before a court. Surendra Gadling, a Nagpur-based lawyer and an accused in the Elgar Parishad case, was also made an accused in one of the cases in which he had defended an accused in the conflict-affected Vidarbha region in Maharashtra.
Sources at
India: NIA Conducts Coordinated Raids on Rights Activists Across 62 Locations in Andhra, Telangana
