The Bengaluru based urban naxal who travelled the world to raise funds for Maoists

Continuing the crack down on urban naxals, the police have arrested a blogger, who is a resident of Bengaluru. The Chhattisgarh police which arrested Abhay Devdas Nayak said that he was a member of the IT cell of the naxalites and also their spokesperson.

The 34 year old Nayak is alleged to have links with several international organisations and has travelled to more than 15 countries, allegedly to raise funds. The police are currently analysing the hard disk seized from his Bengaluru residence which shows that he was touch with several persons including Rona Wilson and foreigners.

There has been a look-out notice against him since May 2017. He was picked up at the Delhi airport upon his arrival and later handed over to the Bastar police. During interrogation, he is said to have confessed to his involvement in naxalite activities.

Abhay who also goes by the alias Lodda was in charge of issuing press releases and promote naxal ideology on the social media.

His name had first cropped up when the police had in 2017 recovered improvised explosive devices in the Darbha region of Bastar. The police had recovered literature relating to naxalites and it had indicated that Lodda was a spokesperson. Further probe indicated that he was closely linked to the likes of Soma Sen and Rona Wilson who were recently arrested by the Pune police in connection with the Bhima-Koregaon violence.

The cover-up:

Back in 2008, Abhay had started a micro-finance company called India Micro Finance Company. He had also started a blog in the same name, the police say. He was largely influenced by Saket Rajan, the Karnataka state committee secretary of the CPI(Maoists).

The police said that he was running the blog since 2006. The blog mainly focused on online motivation, brainwashing and recruitment of youth into the naxal fold.

The police allege that the funding that he would receive was routed into this company.

This company is said to have acted as a front for the funding that was meant for the naxalites. The police which retrieved huge amounts of financial transactions is going through each one of them to ascertain the trail, source and purpose.

Among the countries he had visited were Belgium, France, UK, Ecuador, Bolivia, Cambodia, Mexico, Singapore, Nepal, Indonesia and Russia. All these trips were undertaken to collect funds, the police had also found.