Guwahati: Five people were found guilty on Wednesday in a 2011 People’s Liberation Army (PLA)-Naxal nexus case involving a criminal conspiracy to undermine India’s unity, integrity, security, and sovereignty by a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Guwahati, Assam.
N Dilip Singh of Manipur, Senjam Dhiren Singh, and Arnold Singh of Assam were named as the PLA members who were found guilty by the court. Furthermore, two other defendants who were both from West Bengal and had ties to the Naxals were found guilty. They were identified as Indranil Chanda and Amit Bagchi.
The court found the five defendants guilty on Wednesday after a protracted hearing under Sections 18, 18A, and 39 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967 and Section 121A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
On July 1, 2011, the NIA filed a suo moto case based on information that the PLA, a banned terrorist group, had planned to undermine the government with the help of the CPI (Maoist) or Naxals.
The NIA was quoted by ANI as saying, “CPI (Maoist) leaders had agreed to recognize and support the separatist activities of PLA for the creation of the northeastern state of Manipur, as a separate nation. The PLA leadership, on its part, decided to support the continuing war of CPI (Maoist) for overthrowing the constitutionally elected Government of India.”
According to the NIA, investigations into the case showed that the PLA had set up a liaison office in Kolkata where PLA/RPF and CPI (Maoist) leaders met.
It said that at the conference, the details of a coordinated attack against the Union of India were hashed out. “A bipartite meeting was also held between PLA/ RPF and CPI (Maoist) leadership in Jharkhand for imparting military training to cadres of CPI (Maoist) by PLA/RPF instructors,” said the agency.
Furthermore, it came to the fore during the probe that the SS President of PLA/RPF had also complimented the General Secretary of CPI (Maoist) on carrying out an attack on the security forces on April 6, 2010 which had resulted in the martyrdom of 76 CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh, NIA said.
NIA said, “Investigations also revealed that the PLA had provided logistics support to Maoist cadres and both groups were regularly communicating and exchanging e-mails. The accused persons had travelled to different places within and outside India, and created fake IDs and bank accounts under pseudonymous identities.”
The NIA Special Court in Guwahati received charge papers that were based on the investigation’s findings on May 21, November 16, 2012, and July 31, 2014.