Naxal funding crackdown: NIA confiscates Rs 1 crore following raids in 15 locations

New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has raided 15 different locations, including Ranchi, Hazaribagh and Jamshedpur in Jharkhand and Durgapur in West Bengal as part of its crackdown on those who fund naxal/Maoist activities.

The NIA recovered cash, in both Indian and Singaporean currency, worth Rs 1 crore. The authorities seized several materials like documents related to payments made to Amrapali and Magadh Area Committee of TPC (a leftist extremist outfil called the Tritiya Prastuti Committee), bank account details and fixed deposits.

Diaries, containing accounts of money paid to TPC and PLFI (Peoples Liberation Front of India), computers, hard discs, mobiles, containing accounts of companies were also found during the raid.

On October 9, the "NIA conducted searches at 15 locations in Jharkhand and West Bengal in connection with LWE Terror funding case. Fifteen teams of NIA assisted by Jharkhand police carried out searches at the residences and offices of managers of different companies associated with purchase and transport of coal in Amrapali and Magadh coalfields for their alleged role in providing funds to (banned) LWE organisation TPC,” the agency said in a statement.

The NIA found that the money was extorted from small business houses, contractors, traders and coal and steel producers. The case was first registered in January 2016.

Recently, a trooper of Chhattisgarh Armed Force was arrested for allegedly selling automated weapons and ammunition to Maoists cadres in insurgency-hit Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh.

A case under Sections 380 (theft) and 457 (lurking house-trespass or house-breaking by night in order to commit offence) of Indian Penal Code has been lodged and the matter is being investigated further, superintendent of police, Dantewada, Abhishek Pallav said. 

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