NEW DELHI: In a move to combat left-wing extremism in the Naxal hotbeds of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has conducted searches at multiple locations in both states, officials said on Saturday.The houses and premises of suspects and Naxal operatives were extensively searched by multiple teams of the NIA, which seized several mobile phones and SIM cards, `1.5 lakh cash, and other incriminating material, they added.A senior NIA officer said, “The raids were prompted by the arrest of Krishna Hansda, a Naxal cadre of the proscribed terrorist organisation CPI (Maoist). Hansda, a regional committee member of CPI (Maoist), was arrested in the Lucio forest area of Dumri in January 2023”.During the probe, the NIA, which took over the case in June 2023, unearthed the links of several suspects and Naxals believed to be involved in supplying logistics and electronic items to CPI (Maoist) in the Parasnath area of Giridih.In Chhattisgarh, the probe agency conducted raids in remote villages in a CPI (Maoist) attack on a polling and security team during the Assembly elections in 2023.“Searches were carried out at the locations of at least 11 suspects in the villages of Rawandiggi, Semra, Mainpur, Ghoragaon, Kerabahra and Gariyaband in the sensitive Maoist-infested areas of Gariyaband and Dhamtari districts,” the officer said.He said, “The Mainpur-Nuapada division was behind the IED blast that killed a head constable of ITBP adhoc 615 battalion in the attack on the polling team during the state elections in November last year.”
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