PUNE:
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief
Sharad Pawar on Sunday questioned the authenticity of a letter suggesting a Maoist plot to conduct a “Rajiv Gandhi-type incident” and said there was an attempt to use such letters to garner public sympathy. Pune police had raided the houses of five people in April and arrested them on June 6 for suspected links with CPI (Maoist).
Police claimed that the letter talking about the Maoist plot was part of documents seized during the searches. Police also claimed that there was a link between Maoists and the Elgar Parishad held in Pune a day before the Koregaon-Bhima clashes.
Citing his interaction with state CID officials, Pawar said, “I have been told that letters like the one suggesting the Maoist plot are never leaked to the media.
Instead, an internal investigation is carried out to verify the authenticity of the contents, and then corrective measures are taken to ensure that there is no untoward fallout if a conspiracy is established.” He said that there was an attempt on the part of the government to garner public sympathy.