New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh police have arrested an activist couple – an Allahabad high court lawyer and a former teacher – on charges of alleged Naxal links on the basis of examination and data extraction of electronic devices seized from them 56 months ago in 2019, the year they were questioned by officials.
On March 5 – a day when the Bombay high court acquitted former Delhi University professor G.N Saibaba and others in a case linking them to Maoists – police in UP said they arrested Kripa Shanker Singh, 49, and his wife Binda Sona alias Manju, 41, from Prayagraj. Singh is a lawyer and practises in the high court while his wife used to teach at a private school but now works as a private typist in the high court, said an activist familiar with them.
This was the second such event in less than five months when the Anti-Terrorist Squad of the police arrested an activist couple for alleged Naxal links merely on the basis of analysis of data extracted from their phones and laptops seized more than four years ago.
Earlier, as exclusively reported by The Wire, in December 2023, a 38-year-old activist Anita Aazad alias Prabha suffered a miscarriage in prison a week after a court in Lucknow dismissed her plea for bail on medical grounds of a high-risk pregnancy. Aazad and her husband and fellow activist Brijesh Kushwaha were arrested on October 18, 2023 more than four years after the UP ATS questioned them for suspected Naxal links and seized their devices.
Also read: Woman Jailed Over ‘Maoist Links’ Miscarries a Week After Court Dismisses Medical Bail Plea
Regarding the arrest of Kripa Shanker Singh and his wife Binda Sona, the ATS claimed that it had found “documented evidence” on the examination of the FSL (Forensic Science Laboratory) report of the electronic devices including the laptop of the couple. The police also alleged that the material extracted from the couple’s devices proved that they were primary members of the banned outfit Communist Party of India (Maoist), were involved in a “conspiracy” to “wage war against India” and for this purpose were trying to allure “farmers, workers and the petty bourgeoisie” to work for the outfit. The police, however, did not reveal the nature of the material extracted by them and how it incriminated the couple.
The couple was arrested in connection with an FIR lodged by the ATS in 2019. Although their devices had been seized in July 2019 itself, the FSL report was received only this month, said the ATS.
Singh hails from Kushinagar in East UP and used to run an anti-fascist front.
After completing his education in polytechnic from Deoria, in 2004 he started working in Raipur in Chhattisgarh with Rupantar, an NGO set up by activist Binayek Sen and his wife Ilina Sen. He met Binda in Raipur while working in the NGO and the two married.
The ATS alleged that after getting married the two joined the CPI (Maoist) and in 2007-08 came to Delhi but moved back to UP in 2009-10 where they started organising work and propagating the Maoist ideology among farmers, labourers and students in the rural areas of Deoria and Kushinagar.
Singh was arrested in 2010 over an FIR lodged in Kanpur that linked him and several other activists, including the current president of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties UP unit Seema Azad, to the banned CPI (Maoist) and for allegedly possessing Maoist literature. He got bail in 2016.
The ATS alleged that after being released from jail, Singh and his wife Binda again got involved in Naxalite activities, working with the top officials of the central committee and political bureau of the CPI (Maoist) in the “2U region” of the organization (UP and North Bihar).
The ATS makes a specific allegation against the couple, accusing them of providing shelter to a wanted Naxal leader K. Srinivas alias Arvindji in Maharajganj in 2017-18. Arvindji carried a bounty of Rs 5 lakh, said police. The ATS alleged that the couple provided Srinivas with a pseudonym Arvindji and recruited him as a teacher to help him conceal his identity and evade arrest.
The ATS had made a similar allegation against activist Prabha last year when she and her husband Kushwaha were arrested in connection with the same 2019 FIR.
While Kushwaha is linked to the Mazdoor Kisan Ekta Manch of Deoria, Prabha is associated with the outfit Savitri Bai Phule Sangarsh Samiti. Like Singh and Binda, Kushwaha and Prabha too had met while working in Chhattisgarh in 2006 and got married in 2010.
On December 9, 2023, the jailed Prabha, who was 4.5 months pregnant, suffered a miscarriage and was admitted to a women’s government hospital in Lucknow.
The ATS had in October 2023 arrested Kushwaha from his native place in Deoria in East UP while Prabha was arrested from her maternal house in Raipur where she had intended to rest during the period of her pregnancy. This was the second miscarriage Prabha suffered within months. She suffers from a hyperthyroid condition, raising the chances of a high-risk pregnancy for her, her family had said.
The two couples face charges under Sections 120B, 121A, 419, 420, 467, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 13, 18 and 38 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
The ATS had last year claimed that from data extraction it found letters and literature from Prabha’s and Kushwaha’s electronic devices that were linked to the banned Maoist outfit PLGA (People’s Liberation Guerilla Army) and CPI (Maoist). The documents were related to these outfits building a strong party and organization for resistance against the Indian government, the police alleged.
In July 2019, the UP ATS had lodged an FIR against seven persons, all of them political and social activists. According to the FIR, the police alleged that suspected Naxalites had been holding meetings in the states of UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and were engaging in criminal conspiracy to instigate people for armed rebellion and making a plan for satta parivartan (change in government).
The ATS had then arrested two out of the seven named persons, Manish Azad aka Manish Srivastava and his wife Anita Srivastava from their residence in Bhopal. The two, who have a record in translation and academic work, were later granted bail. Srivastava is the brother of the PUCL UP president Seema Azad.
The police had then conducted raids in Bhopal, Kanpur, Deoria and Kushinagar, and also seized several electronic devices and documents. Although police questioned Kushwaha, Prabha, Singh and Binda, they were not arrested in 2019 for want of physical evidence but only years later on the basis of extraction of data from their electronic devices.
In August 2023, the National Investigation Agency conducted simultaneous searches at the residences and offices of several activists, including Seema Azad, students in various cities of eastern UP purportedly to look for their alleged connection with the CPI (Maoist). The NIA had also raided the residence of Singh, as it conducted similar searches in eight locations in Prayagraj, Deoria, Varanasi, Chandauli and Azamgarh and seized mobile phones, SIM cards, laptops, books, pamphlets, magazines and other publications.
Seema Azad and her husband Vishwa Vijay were arrested in 2010 on charges of being members of the CPI (Maoist) and after spending more than two years in jail, were convicted by a lower court and awarded life imprisonment in 2012. A division bench of the HC in August 2012, however, granted them bail. Singh was a co-accused in the case.
