Special NIA court awards 8-year jail term to five in PLA-CPI(Maoist) nexus case

The Special NIA court in Assam has sentenced five people to eight years in jail in the 2011 PLA-CPI (Maoist) nexus case related to a criminal conspiracy to threaten the country’s unity, integrity, security and sovereignty, an official said on Thursday.

Three of the convicts — N Dilip Singh of Manipur, and Senjam Dhiren Singh and Arnold Singh of Assam — belonged to the proscribed terrorist organisation People’s Liberation Army (PLA), while the other two — Indranil Chanda and Amit Bagchi of West Bengal — are members of the CPI (Maoist), a National Investigation Agency (NIA) spokesperson said.

The agency had filed three charge sheets in the case on May 21 and November 16 in 2012, and on July 31, 2014, in the NIA Special Court, Guwahati.

The court, after extensive hearings, on Wednesday convicted the five accused in the case under various sections of Indian Penal Code and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and announced the sentences, the spokesperson said.

The NIA had registered a suo moto case on July 1, 2011, on inputs that the PLA had hatched a conspiracy to destabilise the country with the support of the CPI (Maoist).

Communist Party of India (Maoist) leaders had agreed to recognise and support the separatist activities of the PLA for the creation of the northeastern state of Manipur as a separate nation, the spokesperson said and added the PLA leadership, on its part, decided to support the continuing war of the CPI (Maoist) for overthrowing the constitutionally elected government of India.

”Investigations revealed that the PLA had established a liaison office in Kolkata, where a meeting was held between PLA/RPF (Revolutionary People’s Front) and CPI (Maoist) leaders. Modalities were worked out at the meeting for taking unified action for waging a war against the Union of India,” the sokesperson said. The agency said that ”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”. ”It further came to light during the investigations that the self styled president of the PLA/RPF had also complimented the general secretary of the CPI (Maoist) on carrying out an attack on the security forces on April 6, 2010, resulting in the killing of 76 CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh,” the spokesperson said.

The official said investigations also revealed that the PLA had provided logistic 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 spokesperson said.