After activists Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha, National Investigation Agency (NIA), in the Elgar Parishad case arrested Hany Babu MT, Delhi University’s associate professor on Tuesday. This is the 12th arrest in the December 2017 Elgar Parishad – Bhima Koregaon case so far.
Hany Babu Musaliyarveettil Tharayil, on July 14, was summoned for questioning before the investigating officer in Mumbai on the next day. He reached on July 24. After 3 days of questioning, the 54-year old was taken into custody on July 28.
NIA claims to have proof of his links with other accused like Rona Wilson. In a statement, the NIA said “accused Hany Babu Musaliyarveettil Tharayil was propagating Naxal activities and Maoist ideology and was a co-conspirator with other arrested accused (in the Elgar Parishad case)”.
Earlier when the case was with the Pune police, they claimed to have recovered a letter from Wilson, (arrested in June 2018), in which a suspected undercover Maoist leader makes mention of a “Comrade H.B” in connection with the “solidarity movement in support of Comrade Sai (G N Saibaba)”. The police suspected that H.B was Hany Babu.
Babu has been associated with a committee for ‘defence and rescue’ of GN Saibaba, who is a former Delhi University professor convicted for alleged Maoists links.
In September 2019, Babu’s home in NCR had been searched by the Pune police. They had booked Babu under charges of sedition. They took two laptops, a mobile phone and pen-drives along with two books in their custody.
Babu is working with Delhi University’s Department of English. His wife, Jenny Rowena, is also an English subject teacher at Miranda House. They both have been vocal on many national issues including arrests of activists in the same case for which Hany Babu is now booked.
The NIA is investigating the 31st December 2017’s Elgar Parishad conference’s alleged Maoist links and an underground nexus of conspirators against the government. Purportedly, the Elgar Parishad conference was funded and organized by banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). The conference was followed by violence on 1st January 2018 in Bhima Koregaon village, allegedly between caste groups (Dalits and Hindutva ideologues). The Dalits were commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon . Read here for more details.
 arrests Delhi University’s associate professor Hany Babu MT on Tuesday in the Elgar Parishad – Bhima Koregaon case.){kind=link}