Maoist sympathizer held with GF in city after Insta post criticised Op Sindoor
1
2
3
Nagpur: A top
Maoist sympathizer
based in Kerala was picked up from a central Nagpur hotel at Marwadi Chowk on Thursday, with intelligence agencies and city police jointly collaborating on his dramatic arrest.
He was found closeted with his girlfriend, a student of a reputed Nagpur college.
Charged with waging war against India, his arrest followed an objectionable Instagram post, where he brandished two guns in each hand and criticised '
Operation Sindoor
'.
Rejaz M Sheeba Sydeek
, president of
Democratic Students Union
, Kerala chapter, was mobilising funds, preparing propaganda material, and gearing up to publish a journal — 'Nazariya' — in support of a nationwide campaign to pressurize the govt to call truce with Maoists.
Operation Sindoor
Operation Sindoor: Several airports in India closed - check full list
Did Pak shoot down Indian jets? What MEA said
India foils Pakistan's attack on Jammu airport: What we know so far
Masquerading as a student activist and journalist, Sydeek was a key urban Maoist operative who was entrusted with forming covert student groups in educational institutions and spreading the anti-govt ideology of the banned CPI (Maoist), said a senior security officer.
Sydeek, who was earlier quizzed by Kerala ATS for his pro-Hamas campaign, was remanded in police custody for five days."Sydeek was networking with many city-based frontal leaders and elsewhere in India, including Delhi. He was also part of the Committee Against State Repression (CASR), which criticises every action carried out by the govt," said the source. Sydeek was arrested by a crime branch team led by senior inspector Kamlakar Gaddime, under the supervision of CP Ravinder Singal.Police sources said, Sydeek was also part of the Maoists' nationwide urban network to build strong consensus against security forces' 'Operation Kagar' which is underway to regain central India's hinterlands of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and Odisha, which were earlier controlled by the guerrillas' jantana sarkar (people's governance).Three books on banned Maoist ideology, including one on late ideologue GN Saibaba were seized from him, pointing to Sydeek's preparation to compile literature condemning the operations in Karregutta hills, which was once a Maoist citadel but is now being recaptured by security forces. Police came across literature — 'Stop Encirclement of Karregutta' — in Sydeek's possession. Another document, titled 'Operation Kagar to Operation Sindoor', was also seized. The booklet was supposed to spread the propaganda in urban networks for peace talks from 'Delhi to Bastar'.Sydeek was learnt to have reached the city on May 5 to meet his girlfriend, a native of Patna, before checking into the hotel. The two met on Instagram and the woman too is heavily influenced by Maoist ideology, said a police source.Sources in security agencies stated Sydeek was entrusted with the social media campaigns of Maoist frontal organisations. Sydeek came under the intelligence radar after his posts supporting Maoists and condemning Operation Sindoor became viral. Police were aware of his occasional forays to the city and they waited for him to return, before zeroing in on him.According to a source, Sydeek went to a firearms outlet at Gandhibagh and shot a picture of himself holding guns in each hand, captioning it with the phrase 'to defend and to resist'. He then used a picture of a wounded child to question the Indian army on the propriety of the strikes.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NDTV
17 minutes ago
- NDTV
"That Shouldn't Be Allowed": Shashi Tharoor's Quip After Son Asks Question In US
Shashi Tharoor made it clear at the outset that the person questioning him at the press conference in New York is his son, Ishan Tharoor, adding with a big smile that "it shouldn't be allowed". Mr Tharoor, leading the all-party delegation on Operation Sindoor, India's diplomatic effort launched to combat terrorism and disinformation following the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam, is in the United States to brief key stakeholders on India's efforts following the deadly attack. It was during one such press conference at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York that Ishan Tharoor got up to ask a question. "You have to stand up. That shouldn't be allowed. This is my son," said Shashi Tharoor with a big smile. "Ishan Tharoor of the Washington Post," the son replied, with a straight face. #WATCH | Washington DC: On a question asked by his son about whether any country had asked the delegation for evidence of Pakistan's involvement in the Pahalgam attack and about Pakistan's repeated denials of any role in the attack, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor says, "I'm very glad… — ANI (@ANI) June 5, 2025 "Definitely asking a question in a personal capacity. And mostly to say hi before you go off to your next engagement," said the Junior Tharoor, who is a foreign affairs columnist at the Washington Post. The columnist son asked his father that as he has been touring countries in the western hemisphere as part of India's diplomatic outreach efforts, have any of your "government interlocutors asked you to show evidence of Pakistan's culpability in the initial attacks". "Well, I'm very glad you raised this, Ishan. I didn't plant it, I promise you. This guy does this to his dad," said the Senior Tharoor, before switching gears to answer the question. "Very simply, no one had any doubt and we were not asked for evidence. But the media have asked in two or three places. Let me say very clearly that India would not have done this without convincing evidence. But there were three particular reasons I want to draw your attention to all of you. The first is that we've had a 37-year pattern of repeated terror attacks from Pakistan, accompanied by repeated denials. I mean, Americans haven't forgotten that Pakistan didn't know, allegedly, where Osama bin Laden was until he was found in a Pakistani safe house right next to an army camp in a cantonment city. That's Pakistan. Mumbai attacks - they denied having anything to do with we know what Pakistan's all about. They will dispatch terrorists, they will deny they did so until they're actually caught with red hands..." said Mr Tharoor.
Time of India
18 minutes ago
- Time of India
‘Political class showed mutual understanding': RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat calls for lasting political unity post-Pahalgam attack, warns against forced conversions
NEW DELHI: chief on Thursday urged that the political consensus and swift government response seen after the Pahalgam terror attack in April should become a lasting feature of India's national security approach. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Speaking at the concluding event of the Karyakarta Vikas Varg in Nagpur, he praised the collective political will and military resolve demonstrated in the aftermath of the attack. 'Action was taken after the heinous terror attack in Pahalgam. The valour of our Army shone once again in it. The firmness of the administration was also seen. The political class showed mutual understanding. The society gave the message of unity. This should continue and become a permanent feature,' Bhagwat said, referring to retaliatory actions under , including strikes on terror hubs in Pakistan and PoK. He said the people were angry after the massacre of tourists in Pahalgam on April 22 and wanted justice, which led to the military response. Operation Sindoor marked a significant escalation, with Indian armed forces bombing terror-linked airbases in Pakistan and repelling drone attacks. Bhagwat warned that enemies were engaged in a proxy war against India. 'Those who can't win a direct fight with India want to bleed our country by the policy of a thousand cuts,' he said, invoking Winston Churchill's WWII speech to highlight societal resilience. 'Churchill had said that society was the true lion, and he merely roared on its behalf.' He further called for national unity and restraint, cautioning against provocation and internal conflict. 'No group or class should come into conflict with another. Acting impulsively or taking the law into one's own hands is not in the country's interest.' Bhagwat came down strongly against religious conversion through coercion or inducement, calling it a form of violence. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now 'Conversion is violence. We are not against it when done by choice. But luring, forcing and pressurising is something we are against,' he said, adding that such acts insult people's ancestors and heritage. 'We are with you (in the fight against conversion),' he told tribal leader and former Union minister Arvind Netam, who was present as chief guest. Netam, hailing from Chhattisgarh, echoed these concerns and criticised successive governments for ignoring religious conversions in tribal areas. 'I think RSS is the only institution which can help us in this area,' he said, urging the Sangh to push the central government for a post-Naxalism action plan to prevent recurrence. He also criticised the non-implementation of the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA), saying it was vital for tribal self-governance and community empowerment. Earlier, in an interview with Organiser, Bhagwat had said India must become militarily and economically self-reliant, asserting, 'We have no option but to be powerful as we have been witnessing the wickedness of the evil forces on all our borders.' He emphasised that true strength must be matched with righteousness, or it risks becoming directionless and violent. The RSS chief concluded that unity, moral strength, and readiness are the pillars of a resilient and powerful India. 'Our roots lie in unity, not in division,' he said.
The Hindu
30 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Pakistan likes to dangle nuclear bogey to get the world excited, Tharoor says in Washington
There was no significant risk that the recent fighting between India and Pakistan, following the April 22 terrorist attack in Pahalgam, was approaching a nuclear threshold, according to Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. 'I think what happened was so far short of anything remotely approaching a nuclear threshold that the proposition, frankly, is laughable,' he said at a discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington DC on Thursday (June 5, 2025). Mr Tharoor, who heads the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, is leading a multi-party delegation of lawmakers and former Ambassadors on a diplomatic outreach tour of Guyana, Panama, Colombia, Brazil, and the U.S. Seven such delegations have been dispatched around the world following the armed conflict between India and Pakistan in early May. 'Our Pakistani friends, I think, like to dangle this nuclear bogey to get all of you excited and anxious,' he said, when asked if the conflict came close to a nuclear war and if nuclear brinkmanship was to be expected in the future. 'We've got a nuclear power engaged in the war right now for two-and-a-half years in Europe, and no one has talked about nukes yet,' he said, asking why there was such a discussion just after a few days of fighting in India. [Mr. Tharoor was presumably referring to the Russia-Ukraine war which began in February 2022. There have been repeated discussions about and reporting on the risk of Russia using nuclear weapons]. Mr. Tharoor urged people not to worry about India using nuclear weapons, as he emphasised India's 'no first use' policy and Pakistan's lack of one. India's response via Operation Sindoor and the subsequent fighting with Pakistan was 'calibrated retribution' (for the attack in Pahalgam) and did not pose an existential threat to Pakistan, he said. 'Mediation not a term we will entertain' In his time in Washington so far, Mr. Tharoor has repeatedly pushed back against the prospect of U.S. mediation, a subject that has come up given U.S. President Donald Trump's claims that he brokered the May 10 ceasefire between the two countries and used trade with the U.S. as leverage to achieve it. 'I would never presume to tell the U.S. to stay the heck out of anything it wants to get involved in. But mediation is not a term that we are particularly willing to entertain,' he said, when asked if it was useful to have the U.S. as a mediator or broker or 'transmitter of signals'. 'Mediation' implied an equivalence, Mr. Tharoor said, arguing that there was no equivalence between terrorists and their victims. 'There is no equivalence between a country that provides safe haven to terrorism and a country that's a flourishing multi-party democracy that's trying to get on with its business,' he added. Acknowledging the calls between officials in the Trump administration and Modi government, while the conflict was under way, Mr. Tharoor said the Americans perhaps wanted to keep themselves informed. He guessed that perhaps U.S. officials persuaded the Pakistanis to stop fighting, as it was Islamabad that needed persuading to call off the confrontation. Mr. Tharoor hit out at Pakistan's Army chief, Asim Munir, for a speech he had made a few days before the April 22 attack, in which he had asserted that Hindus and Muslims are fundamentally different. Mr. Munir's assertion was 'astonishingly bigoted', Mr. Tharoor said. Mr. Tharoor was asked by his son, who is a journalist, if any of the delegation's interlocutors had asked for evidence of who had carried out the April 22 attack. 'Very simply, no one had any doubt, and we were not asked for evidence, but media have asked,' the senior Tharoor said. He listed Pakistan's history of ties to terror attacks, the fact that former al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was found in Pakistan before being killed by U.S. forces in 2011. He also said The Resistance Front had claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam attack initially and pointed to Pakistani military presence at the funerals of terrorists killed by India in counter-strikes. 'This showed all the hallmarks of a sophisticated, planned, deliberate operation,' Mr. Tharoor said.
