Sleuths of the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh arrested Brijesh Kushwana (43), and his wife Prabha Kushwaha (38) after raiding their house in Badkirarbandi village under Barhaj police station of Deoria on Wednesday.

Brijesh was said to be associated with the farmers’ movement.

However, the anti-terror agencies later claimed to have arrested Brijesh from Deoria and Prabha from Raipur and alleged that they indulged in Naxalite and urban Naxal activities.

Kushwaha was under the radar of the ATS and the couple was also detained in 2019.

According to an official communiqué, the ATS team reached the house of Brijesh Kushwaha with the help of the local police and carried out a search operation. Along with taking Brijesh Kushwaha into custody, his wife Prabha and other family members were also interrogated for an hour and the documents kept in the house were seized. 

However, in the evening, ATS showed Brijesh’s arrest from Deoria and of Prabha from Raipur.

It is being said that Brijesh Kushwaha runs a bag shop at Barhaj intersection.  He played a major role in the farmers’ movement in Delhi.  Apart from this, he has also cooperated in many other farmer movements.

This is not the first time that ATS has detained Brijesh Kushwaha. About four years ago also ATS had detained Brijesh Kushwaha along with his wife and released them after interrogating them for two days.

On Wednesday, the ATS disclosed that on July 15, 2019, they conducted raids in search for Maoists who are trying to revive Naxalite activities in the state.

The ATS sleuths have launched a search for the suspects following revelations made by Kheem Singh Vohra, a Naxalite who carried a reward of Rs 50,000, during interrogation after his arrest from Bareilly railway station earlier in 2019.

The ATS had conducted raids in Bhopal and arrested one couple, Manish Srivastava and Amita Srivastava aka Varsha of Jaunpur, and recovered correspondence between them and Maoists.

During interrogation, Manish revealed about Vohra, who was already arrested. During joint interrogation, Vohra and Manish revealed that 15 members of Maoist group were trying to revive the Naxal movement in UP and Uttarakhand.

“The Maoists give Rs 10,000 to members as salary besides medical and special operations allowances. All transactions are done by cash. The members are trained in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh and have to visit Dhanbad for taking command from headquarters. We are trying to break their financial support system,” then ATS head Aseem Arun revealed.

ATS claimed that during that search in 2019, they also recovered some electronic gadgets from Brijesh’s house but instead of taking any action, they sent them for verification and to retrieve the documents and files already deleted. The gadgets were sent to forensic experts, who according to ATS, submitted a report last month confirming that Brijesh and Prabha were dispatching letters to carry out activities of banned People’s Liberation Guerilla Army, CPI (Moists) etc against the Government of India.

Following this the ATS arrested the couple on Wednesday. Prabha will now be brought here on transit remand from Raipur.