NEW DELHI: The anti-terror federal probe agency NIA on Friday conducted raids across four states including Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, as part of the agency’s efforts to scuttle the attempts of the banned CPI (Maoist) outfit to revive its presence in the Northern Regional Bureau area, officials said.The officials said that in total nine locations, which were linked to various accused and suspects in the case, were raided as part of the crackdown.“The locations included four in Punjab, two each in UP and Haryana and one in Delhi. All these states, along with Himachal Pradesh, constitute the National Regional Bureau (NRB), which the banned Naxal outfit is aggressively targeting in a bid to re-energise itself,” a senior NIA official said.Several digital devices (laptops, mobile phones, pen drives, compact discs, memory cards), SIM cards, and pocket diaries were seized during the raids conducted at the premises of suspects believed to be close aides of various accused in the case, the official said.“The suspects, who were raided on Friday, were receiving funds for propagation of CPI (Maoist) ideology from the erstwhile Eastern Regional Bureau (ERB) head Prashant Bose,” the official said claiming that the agency has found this in its investigation.The ERB, particularly Jharkhand had been funding the suspects, believed to be long-time associates and OGWs of the accused, to recruit cadres and raise the organisation in the northern states, he added.The NIA investigations have further led to the identification of several front organisations and student wings tasked to identify suitable persons to work as underground cadres, to wage a war against the Government of India and to carry out violent terrorist acts as per the ideology of the proscribed outfit, the official alleged.
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