NIA charge-sheets Ballia man for recruiting cadres for CPI (Maoist)

Lucknow, Sep 14 (PTI) The NIA on Saturday charge-sheeted a man from Uttar Pradesh's Ballia district for participating in CPI (Maoist) activities, including recruitment of cadres for the proscribed outfit, according to an official statement.

The supplementary charge sheet filed before an NIA special court in Lucknow named Santosh Verma alias Mantosh, a resident of Ballia's Kotwali area, it said.

He has been charged as an active cadre of the banned CPI (Maoist), and, according to the charge sheet, was associating with other members of the outfit in conspiring and indulging in disruptive activities aimed at threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India.

He was also actively involved in the recruitment of cadres for CPI (Maoist), the National Investigation Agency (NIA) statement added.

The case was originally registered on August 16 last year at Lucknow's ATS police station following the arrest of five people in a raid on the home of one Ram Murat the previous day, the probe agency said.

Several incriminating documents, literature and pamphlets related to CPI (Maoist), along with arms and ammunition and digital devices, were seized from the accused.

Investigations revealed that the proscribed organisation was using frontal outfits to propagate Naxal ideology in districts bordering Bihar.

It was with this aim that they had organised a meeting at Murat's house to further their sinister motives, the NIA said.

The central agency, which took over the investigation on November 10, had charge-sheeted four other accused in the case on February 9.

The NIA's probe has so far revealed that leaders, cadres and sympathisers/overground workers of CPI (Maoist) were engaged in various nefarious activities in an effort to re-energise the outfit in the Northern Regional Bureau, comprising Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. PTI AKV SZM