NIA attaches over Rs 20 crore Maoist funds

In a major blow to the funding of Left-Wing extremism, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has attached over Rs 20 crore.

This is the largest amount the NIA has attached in connection with Left-Wing Extremism cases.

The NIA has attached as many as 152 bank accounts and one SBI Mutual Fund account containing a total of Rs 20,65,20,496/- belonging to a firm Santosh Construction and its different partners under section 25(1) of the UA (P) Act.

Earlier, the accounts were frozen under the provisions of criminal procedure code. The NIA found the money to be ‘proceeds of terrorism’ warranting their ‘attachment’ under UA (P) Act.

According to the NIA, the accused Mrityunjay Kumar Singh aka Sonu Singh, one of the partners of Santosh Construction, had a close nexus with top Maoist functionaries. He had provided cash funds to Maoist functionary Ravindra Ganjhu, a regional committee member of CPI (Maoist) for furtherance of Maoist activities.

This came to light during the investigation of a case related to killing of four police personnel and looting their arms, ammunition on November 22, 2019 at Lukaiya More under Chandwa police station limits in Latehar district of Jharkhand state. NIA found that Mrityunjay continued to fund the Maoists and their activities, even after the Lukaiya More incident.