Bihar: NIA Patna Court Finds 3 Guilty In 2012 CPI (Maoist) Arms And Ammunition Seizure Case Of Aurangabad

Patna: The NIA Special Court in Patna on Saturday sentenced six accused individuals to rigorous imprisonment and imposed fines under various penal sections in a 2016 case involving the planting of an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) on the railway track near Ghorasahan railway station in Bihar. The accused were involved in planting a pressure cooker IED on the railway track on the night of September 30 in an attempt to blast a passenger train coming from Narkatiaganj. Fortunately, the IED was spotted by local residents and successfully defused before it could explode. During the investigation, the local police established the involvement of the following accused: Umashankar Raut (also known as Umashankar Patel or Raju Patel), Gajendra Sharma (also known as Gajendra Thakur), Rakesh Kumar Yadav (also known as Rakesh), Mukesh Kumar Yadav (also known as Mukesh), Motilal Paswan (also known as Moti), and Ranjay Kumar Sah (also known as Ranjay). Initially, three of the accused were arrested by the local police, while two others were nabbed later by the NIA on different occasions after it took over the probe in January 2017. The sixth accused surrendered in February 2017. The chargesheet against all accused was filed by the NIA in July 2017. On September 24, 2024, the NIA Court found the accused guilty. Today, the court announced the sentences against them under relevant sections of the IPC, UA(P) Act, Explosive Substances Act, and Railway Act. The sentences pronounced by the court range from 5 to 12 years of rigorous imprisonment along with fines, which will run concurrently, with an extension of 3 months of imprisonment in case of non payment of fines.

PATNA – The NIA Special Court Patna on Friday convicted three accused in a 2012 Naxal arms and ammunition seizure case of Aurangabad, Bihar.

The court has found Udit Narayan Singh @ Tulsi @ Tufan, Akhilesh Singh @ Manoj Singh and Arjunji @ Mani Yadav guilty of being in possession of prohibited and non-prohibited arms and ammunition as well as chemicals for making IEDs and bombs for use in terror attacks by the banned CPI (Maoist) outfit. The accused, all active cadres of CPI (Maoist), were also found in possession of cash collected as levy money for carrying out terrorist activities.

The quantum of punishment against the trio will be pronounced by the court on Monday, 4th December 2023.

The accused had been charged by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under various sections of UA(P) Act, Arms Act and Explosive Substances Act in the case (RC-01/2013/NIA-DLI).

The Aurangabad Town police had initially registered the case on 26th March 2012, a day after raids in the houses of the three accused following the receipt of secret information that some active cadres of CPI (Maoist) had assembled in Aurangabad to execute some terrorist activities. During the raids, the police had seized prohibited arms, magazines, huge quantity of ammunition, RPG grenades, chemical substances, Bolero vehicle, mobile sets, Indian Currency of face value Rs. 3,34,000, as well as Naxal literature and other incriminating documents.

All the three accused were arrested after the raids. Subsequent investigation by the police led to the filing of a chargesheet and a supplementary chargesheet against the trio.  The NIA, after taking over the case on 19th March 2013, conducted further investigation and filed another supplementary chargesheet on 6th June 2015 in the court of the special judge, NIA, Patna.