FIRST PERSON: A personal account of an NIA raid

N Venugopal, editor of 'Veekshanam' magazine. (Supplied)

It was a morning when eight unknown persons, two of them holding ultra-modern lethal weapons like AK 47 and SLRs, invaded and kept my home hostage for four hours. It was a morning when I had to be a prisoner in my own house for four hours.

It was a morning when I was forced to be a silent spectator as some people were rummaging through my belongings. It was a morning when I had to silently surrender when somebody stole my cell phone despite my protestations.

It was a morning when a neighbour bringing a milk packet rang our bell, and I had to seek permission from somebody else to open my own door.

It was a long four hours full of varied emotions — anxiety for some time, angry arguments for some time, patient explanation of contested issues for some time, drowning in silent dejection for some time and burying myself in newspapers for some time.

Our doorbell rang at 5 am that day, Thursday, 8 February. When I opened the door, a posse of about eight people, including two armed policemen in uniform, was outside the grill door. I unlocked the door and let them in.

Of course, standing at the entrance, they politely told me, “We have a search warrant to search your house.” And they added, “Before we enter your house, please check us so that there won’t be any scope of alleging that we planted something in your house.”

I told them there was no need to check; I had seen hundreds of instances of police cooking up false evidence. I allowed them inside without any check.

Also Read: NIA raids residence of journalist N Venugopal

I wanted to see the search warrant

I wanted to see the search warrant. They said they would give it to me to read, not to retain. Though that was not true, I took the paper in my hand.

Through that, I learnt that the NIA took over the case registered by Telangana Police in September 2023, and the higher officials of NIA (certainly not a court, as mandatory) authorised a search of my house as an accused in the case.

That five-month-old case was a travesty of truth. On 15 September, Telangana police arrested one Sanjoy Deepak Rao in Hyderabad, claiming him to be a Central Committee member of the CPI (Maoist). The FIR on his arrest also contained his “confession statement”, in which he is supposed to have said that their party had a meeting in 2021 where a decision was taken to contact a few persons to advance their party activities in urban areas. There was a list of about ten people, and my name was also mentioned. Based on that “confession”,  I was included as an accused!

However, the “confession statement” and its application have several holes:

1. The said person was a Maharashtrian by birth, and there is no evidence that he knew Telugu, in which language the witnesses wrote the statement.

2, One doesn’t know whether he made the statement and whether his signature on the statement was taken under duress.

3. Anyway, the Indian judiciary does not take a “confession” made before the police as valid.

4. Even if one answers these three questions, several other major questions follow: The statement mentions only a third-party decision, and there is no corroborative evidence to show whether that decision was implemented, intimated to me, where and when and how it was intimated to me, whether I accepted the decision, whether I committed any action/offence following the intimation of their decision. I cannot be made a party to somebody’s decision, even if what was written by police witnesses was true.

Also Read: Supreme Court grants bail to Telugu poet-activist Varavara Rao

Glaring lack of intelligence

Moreover, my name was qualified as “member, Virasam”, which is an absolute falsehood. Virasam (Revolutionary Writers’ Association) is a writers’ organisation in both Telugu states, banned twice by the government.

In the first instance, the judicial panel struck down the ban, and in the second instance, the government itself withdrew the ban after three months. I was a member of that organisation till 2009, when I was expelled. In the subsequent 14 years, I had nothing to do with that organisation.

Showing this glaring lack of intelligence and falsehood of the government intelligence agency, I wrote an open letter to the then chief minister, published in Andhra Jyothi. Addressing K Chandrashekar Rao, I demonstrated how erroneously and foolishly that case was made, and my name was included.

However, that was not the only false case filed by Telangana police. With hilarious and ridiculous mistakes, dozens of such bogus cases were filed on revolutionaries, Adivasis, and critics of government policies. It was the second such case against me.

Telangana police, between 2018 and 2023, have registered at least three dozen such cases, and 14 of them also included names of writers, journalists, lawyers, and social activists. They all have similar proforma FIRs, with only the names and places changed. Invariably, the FIR says the police happened to attack a squad or arrest a person, and there they found some papers in which they found plans of conspiracies and conspirators. Thus, they implicated about 250 persons in public life and a dozen Maoist cadres.

Police have filed hilarious cases in the past

One such hilarious case has to be mentioned as an example. In that case, the police seem to have got hold of the letterheads of some organisations and included all the names appearing on them. They wanted to include the office bearers of the Indian Association of Peoples Lawyers, and hence, the name of the organisation’s president, Justice Suresh, was included.

However, Justice Suresh had passed away two years before the case was registered. There was the name of another person who died a year ago. As some people were involved in two or three organisations, at least three names were repeated in the FIR. All this shows that the cases were made without application of mind and to terrorize all those who speak, write and work in the public domain.

In all these cases, Telangana police invoked various sections of the UAPA. If a case involves the UAPA, it is an open invitation to the NIA to come and take over. If a case is booked under the UAPA, the NIA can take over the case without obtaining consent or even informing the state government that filed the case initially. Thus, by invoking the UAPA, the state government loses its power over an item of the state list in the constitution on its own, thus undermining the federal structure.

Even as I looked at the paper, the person who introduced himself as B Ganesh Babu, Inspector, NIA, asked me for my phone. I questioned him under what law he was asking for my phone and told him snatching the phone away or politely asking for the phone was not at all legal. I also told him about the Supreme Court guidelines in the case involving the seizure of electronic devices.

I also reminded him of the arrest scene of Arnab Goswami when at least two of his family members were seen using cell phones. I asked him whether everyone was not equal before the law.

Also Read: CPI (Maoist) leader Sanjoy Deepak Rao arrested 

‘We would inform if it were an arrest’

He was silent all through and finally said, whatever that may be, I must surrender the phone. Then I wrote my protest on the search warrant and gave him the phone.

Then my partner Vanaja asked him whether it was an arrest, and he said, “No, madam. This is only a search warrant. We would inform if it were an arrest.”

Vanaja told him, “In this home, I have my phone and electronic gadgets as I am an independent journalist, filmmaker and YouTuber. Your search warrant is in his name, and you cannot touch my devices.” He assured, “No, no, madam, we won’t take your devices if you identify them as yours. But you should not use your phone till we are here.”

I remained in the hall, and they searched each room along with Vanaja. First, they checked Vanaja’s editing table, Mac system, and hard disks containing her films and YouTube videos.

Did she have a licensed revolver?

They enquired about the green mat, focus light, camera tripod, cameras and their functioning. Suddenly, they asked Vanaja whether she had a licensed revolver. We laughed it off.

After checking her electronic gadgets, they jumped onto my books. Since I was not there, I learnt what they saw and did only later. But Vanaja’s comments on their search operations were audible:

“Those are the notes Venu took when we were visiting Germany.”

“Those books are gifts from the former chief minister’s CPRO.”

“They are the files of Venu’s clippings.”

“Those spiral bounds are photocopies of costly books unavailable in India.”

Also Read: How Revanth Reddy is looking to efface KCR’s legacy in Telangana movement

Surprised to see Ramayana 

They sighted a big bag of books. That set of Ramayana and Bhagavata was written by Vanam Jwalanarasimha Rao, a friend of mine and CPRO to the Telangana Chief Minister, who sent the set as a gift. It seems the police officer was surprised to see Ramayana at my home when he came to find banned Maoist literature!

Of course, the next racks had books in Telugu by doyens of progressive and revolutionary writing. There were also books on history, political economy, literary criticism, current events, short story, novel, translations…what not? I think they got tired of looking at them and browsing.

Then, they opened the shelves of files containing my writings. Though I could not collect and keep all my writings, whatever I could save since the 1980s is in five large files. Maybe a couple of hundreds of essays. In the last two decades, I have become accustomed to writing on a computer, and instead of newspaper clippings, I keep computer printouts. It seems they got bored seeing hundreds of essays on all possible issues.

In some files, I also kept bits and pieces of information and source materials that helped me write my essays. The officer fished out an interesting piece of paper there. He came to me and asked about it. Perhaps that was the only question he asked me!

He asked me why I saved that

That is an A4 sheet with CPI-ML State Committee or something in red as the letterhead — a few handwritten lines addressing Varalakshmi. The letter said, “Despite the warning, you are going to hold a memorial meeting for Ganti Prasadam. You will also meet the same fate as Prasadam.” It carried the signature, “Komali, Chattisgarh Chirutalu (Cheetahs), Proddutur area committee”, with some date in 2013.

Luckily, that letter is tagged with a press clipping that states that a state-sponsored vigilante group active at that time, which killed Prasadam, circulated this kind of fake threatening letter to many others.

I told him the history of a mercenary group sponsored by the Andhra Pradesh police during that period and the context in which that letter was written. Then he asked why I saved that. “I might have written an article on those death threats, and it may be a part of the source material I collected,” I replied. He put the paper aside.

Then they entered my son Vibhaatha’s room and searched his books and phone. They asked Vanaja to put it on to check whether it was his. Then they trooped into our bedroom and spent some time checking books and my personal files. They did not even spare the kitchen and washrooms.

Also Read: Fiscal federalism: The glaring gap between what southern states give and receive

I submit my phone under protest

By then, it was nearly three and a half hours since they arrived. Then, they began writing a seizure report. By then, the only item seized was my cell phone, and that is what they wrote in their report.

Two witnesses they had brought along and two officers signed it. They asked me to sign as well. I wrote, “As a journalist, my cell phone is my lifeline, and I submit it under protest” and signed.

The inspector got a phone call, and I could gather that he said they had only cell phones and nothing else. On the other hand, the person insisted on getting some more.

Then the inspector said, “There is a letterhead of CPI-ML State Committee…” and went out so that I would not hear what he said. After five minutes, he returned and told me they also wanted to seize that letter.

I told him, “It is a letter written by your own police or a mafia gang created by the police. Anyway, that will not be useful in this case. OK, take it away.” Then he tore off the first page of the already-written seizure report and wrote it afresh.

The seized items thus became two. And again, they took all five signatures.

How draconian their organisation is

Meanwhile, I told them how at least 25 false cases were foisted on Varavara Rao and how courts struck each of them off, and he was left “not guilty”. I told them how the police are used to cooking up false cases and explained the principles of the Indian judiciary.

I told them I had nothing against them as individuals, but they had to understand how draconian their organisation was. I asked them to understand how Amit Shah was using their organisation as a tool to take the country into darkness. I almost lectured them to make them realize their duty as citizens of this country. I felt sorry for them as a captive audience.

All the while, four or five police vehicles, armed guards and policemen in civil clothes created a terrorized atmosphere in front of our apartment complex. They created a scene as if they were raiding the house of a dreaded terrorist.

Three days later, they called me to their office again for interrogation. The five and a half hours-worth interaction was a wasteful exercise in producing an autobiography.

How much money and energy of the state is being wasted and misused on an unnecessary investigation into a blatantly false case? I felt sorry for the state that is so paranoid. The raid, even if it was to terrorize me or my family or people around, utterly failed. The raid could only reinforce my strong resolve to stand on behalf of people, giving voice to the voiceless and playing the role of a responsible, literate citizen in exposing the machinations of the ruling classes.

(The author is Editor, Veekshanam, Telugu monthly journal of political economy and society. Views are personal.)