The Uttar Pradesh police have arrested an activist couple for alleged Naxal links based on data extracted from electronic devices seized from them in 2019.
Kripa Shanker Singh (49), a high court lawyer and his wife Binda Sona alias Manju (41), a former teacher were arrested from Allahabad on March 5.
Singh practises in Allahabad High Court while his wife who used to teach at a private school now works as a typist in the court, a source told The Wire.
The couple was questioned by the UP Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in 2019 when their mobile phones and laptops were seized.
Now, the arrest happens after 56 months, making this incident the second such instance of detention by ATS in the recent past.
Strangely, though the couple was arrested in connection with an FIR filed in 2019, the forensic examination report of the devices was submitted only this month.
In a similar case, Anita Aazad alias Prabha 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 alleged Naxal links and confiscated their gadgets.
Later in December 2023, Anita suffered a miscarriage in prison after a court in Lucknow dismissed her plea for bail on medical grounds of a high-risk pregnancy.
In the case of the newly arrested couple, the ATS officials claimed they had found “documented evidence” on the forensic examination report of the seized devices to prove the couple’s involvement with the banned outfit Communist Party of India (Maoist), in a “conspiracy” to “wage war against India” by persuading “farmers, workers and the petty bourgeoisie” to work for the cause.
The ATS further alleged that after their marriage in 2008, the two joined the CPI (Maoist) and moved to Delhi, but in 2009-10 moved back to UP to propagate the Maoist ideology among farmers, labourers and students in the rural areas of Deoria and Kushinagar.
However, the police did not provide the nature of the evidence and the grounds on which the couple were framed.
Singh, who used to run an anti-fascist front, hails from East UP’s Kushinagar.
After his education at Deoria polytechnic, in 2004, he started working in Rupantar, a Raipur-based NGO set up by activist Binayek Sen and his wife Ilina Sen.
It was during that time he met Binda, and the two eventually married.
Singh was earlier arrested in 2010, in connection with a case filed in Kanpur involving several other activists, including Seema Azad, the current president of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties UP unit.
The ATS alleged that after being released from jail in 2016, Singh and his wife Binda again became active in Naxalite activities, working with the central committee and political bureau of the CPI (Maoist) in UP and North Bihar.
Another allegation against the couple is that they provided shelter to K. Srinivas alias Arvindji, a wanted Naxal leader carrying a bounty of rupees five lakhs in Maharajganj during 2017-18.
The couple 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 (UAPA).
