Hyderabad: The Siddipet police on Friday arrested Osmania University assistant professor Chinthakindi Kashim for alleged Maoist links after conducting sear-ches at his house on the campus from 7 am on Saturday.
The police arrested Mr Kashim, 43, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UA-PA) and booked him for sedition, stating that he was a ‘professional revolutionary’.
Mr Kashim had been elected general secretary of Virasam (Vipl-ava Rachayitala Sang-am, revolutionary writers forum) last week.
The searches at the professor’s Osmania Univesity Quarters No. VI-9 and the arrest were carried out by a team led by Gajwel assistant commissioner of police Narayana.
Police said they found ‘pro-Maoist’ materials like banned revolutionary literature, leaflets, pamphlets and compact discs (CDs) “supporting Maoist groups” when they searched OU assistant professor Chinthakindi Kashim
“We informed his wife at about 10.15 am and took Kashim into custody. There is credible information that he had links with the Maoists’ Telangana state secretary Hari Bushan alias Jagan and central committee members. We suspect that with the money supplied by Maoists, he was organising programmes for them,” said a police official.
The police has recently made a series of arrests including that of Telangana Vidyarthi Vedika president Bandari Maddileti, Telangana Praja Front state vice-president Nalamasi Krishna and Osmania University assistant professor K. Jagan on the charges of having links with the Maoists.
In 2018, Virasam leader and Telugu poet P. Varavara Rao was arrested by the Maharashtra police in the Bhima Koregaon case.
The atmosphere on the campus was charged as the news of the arrest of Mr Kashim spread. Many students took out a rally on the campus in protest. The Osmania University police detained some of them.
Ms Snehalatha, the wife of Mr Kashim, told the media, “The police is claiming that he was absconding since five months which is baseless as he is a government employee and attended his duties every day. My husband is being targeted as he is writing and talking about social inequalities, problems of caste and unemployment.”
Ms Snehalatha said Mr Kashim’s arrest was nothing but a continuation of the crackdown on dissenting voices in the state. “I will move the High Court against his arrest.”
The case relating to Mr Kashim’s arrest goes back to January 3, 2016, Shyam Sunder, an alleged Maoist sympathiser, was in a car that met with an accident. He abandoned the vehicle in which the police later reportedly found some revolutionary literature, letters, a pen drive and donation vouchers of ‘Nadustunna Telangana,’ a monthly magazine.
Sunder later surrendered at the Mulugu police station in Medak district and reportedly confessed that he was working as a courier for the Maoists for 20 years. He stated that he used to facilitate the exchange of letters between Mr Kashim alias Kaarthik and Maoist central committee member Chandranna alias Aathram.
Subsequently, a case was registered by the Mulugu police, which is part of the Siddipet commissionerate.
The Siddipet police secured a search warrant from the Gajwel court to search the residence of Mr Kashim.
The case was registered against Mr Kashim under Sections 10 and 18 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) along with IPC crimes like criminal conspiracy, conspiracy to use criminal force and sedition.
Condemning the arrest, CPI leader K. Narayana alleged that the government was deliberately harassing intellectuals on the pretext of having Maoist connections and registering false cases against them.
