Hyderabad: The Cyberabad Police arrested Sanjoy Deepak Rao, a member of the Central Committee of CPI (Maoist), on Friday. The arrest took place near Malaysian Township, Kukatpally, based on reliable information from the Intelligence department.
The Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) had been tracking Rao for a long time. Upon his arrest, the police seized a revolver with six live rounds, a laptop, Rs 47,250, and other materials. Rao, who hails from Thane, Maharashtra, was wanted by the police in Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and the NIA. The Maharashtra government had even offered a reward of Rs 25 lakh for information leading to his capture. The police plan to interrogate Rao regarding his involvement in unlawful activities, his area of operation, and his connections with activists in Telangana.
Rao completed his BTech (electrical) from the Regional Engineering College (now NIIT) in Jammu and Kashmir in 1983-84. According to DGP Anjani Kumar, Rao was influenced by his father, who was a Communist trade union leader. During his time in J&K, some of Rao’s friends supported the separatist movement in Kashmir. He would visit their houses in Mumbai, Pune, and Hyderabad while taking precautions for party work. In 1999, he formed the CPI ML Naxalbari group with Konath Muralidharan (alias Ajith), where Rao was in charge of Maharashtra.
Rao has a history of arrests. He was first arrested by the Sahadha Police in Nandurbar district in July 2000 and was released at the end of that year. In 2005, he was arrested again by the Mulkanoor police in Karnataka and released in 2006. Recently, Rao had come to Hyderabad and was on his way to Maad, Chhattisgarh, for a meeting when he was intercepted by the Cyberabad police based on specific intelligence inputs.
