Author: Bharti Jain, TNN
Publication:  The Times of India
Date: September 3, 2018
URL:    https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/intel-varavara-rao-attended-funeral-of-maoist-commander/articleshow/65650252.cms

Varavara Rao, one of the five activists placed under house arrest last week in the Koregaon Bhima case, had attended the funeral of a CPI (Maoist) commander killed in an anti-Maoist operation in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra, in April, sources in the central intelligence agencies said.

Rao, who is a poet and journalist, was also part of a meeting to commemorate the first death anniversary of CPI (Maoist) divisional committee member Kapuka Prabhakar, killed in October 2016 in an encounter with security forces in Malkangiri, Odisha, sources added.

The intelligence agencies’ dossier on Rao, national president of alleged Maoist front Revolutionary Democratic Front and the main coordinator of activities of Maoist affiliates, recorded his attendance at the funeral of Shrikant alias Shrinu, secretary of South Gadchiroli divisional committee of CPI (Maoist), conducted in Telangana’s Jayashankar-Bhupalpally district on April 25. Shrikant was one of 39 Naxalites killed on April 22 in what the home ministry has recognised as one of the most successful and well-executed encounters in the counter-Naxal grid.

On October 24, 2017, Rao was part of a commemoration meeting organised by RDF, Revolutionary Writers Association and Telangana Praja Front to mark the first death anniversary of Kapuka Prabhakar, member of the divisional committee of CPI (Maoist). Prabhakar was killed on the same day in 2016 in an anti-LWE operation in Odisha’s Malkangiri district. As many as 24 Maoists were neutralised in the operation.

As per an intelligence report, Rao, during the commemoration meeting, eulogised Prabhakar’s role in the Maoist “movement” and as a leader of Praja Kala Mandali, an alleged pro-Maoist outfit. Rao appealed to people to work to strengthen PKM and demanded that the state government stop the alleged suppression of mass organisations of CPI (Maoist). He had also slammed the Malkangiri and Gadchiroli encounters in 2016 and 2018 respectively as “fake”, alleging that “victims” had been killed by the forces in cold blood. “Rao is a vocal critic of anti-Maoist operations by the security forces and openly declares any Maoist death in such operations as ‘fake’ encounter to discredit efforts of the forces,” an intelligence officer said.

In his speech on July 18, delivered at the fourth state conference of Amaraveeraula Bandhu Mrithula Sangham, an alleged CPI (Maoist) front, commemorating Maoist ‘martyrs’, Varavara Rao had criticised the central government for “targeted violence” against Maoists, Dalits and Kashmiris.

At a meeting in Imphal on September 26, 2017, Rao said that the north-eastern states were never a part of the country and expressed solidarity with the “nationality struggles” in these areas. According to intelligence reports, he extended support to the ‘right to self-determination’ of the people of Manipur and claimed that the Naxalbari movement had shown an alternative path to the parliamentary system by providing “power to the people at the grassroots”.