Five people arrested in 19-year-old case of Maoist attack on Karnataka police outpost

The police appealed against the acquittals and the Karnataka high court directed them in 2019 to bring to trial the 42 missing accused in the case.

Among the accused in the case is Telugu poet and activist Varavara Rao, 83, who was arrested in July 2019 from the Yerawada prison, where he was lodged in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case. He was later granted bail.

Telugu balladeer Gaddar was also an accused in the case, but the trial against him was dropped on October 31, 2023, after a Tumkur district court was informed of his death on August 6, 2023. On October 23, 2023, the Tumkur court issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for 39 people who had not been brought to book in the case.

The five people arrested this week in the 2005 case are all from Andhra Pradesh and include a woman. They are Padma N, 35; H Nagaraj, 45; Boya Obalesh, 48; Boya Anjaneyulu, 47; and Ramamohan, 44.

“The accused were arrested on the evening of January 7 and produced in court on Monday. The arrests were carried out on information provided by the Internal Security Division,” Superintendent of Police Ashok KV said.

Six jawans of the Karnataka State Reserve Police Force, a cook and another civilian were killed in the Maoist attack in Pavagada.

Varavara Rao and Gaddar were named among 42 Maoist sympathisers and others who are accused of abetting the attack in retaliation for the death of a Maoist leader, Saketh Rajan, in a police encounter in Karnataka on February 6, 2005.

The arrests of the absconding accused in the 2005 Pavagada Maoist attack case come at a time when the Opposition BJP has protested against the arrest of BJP worker Srikanth Poojari in a rioting case from 1992.