HYDERABAD: Pune police, who seized the hard disk from revolutionary writer Varavara Rao’s residence at the time of his arrest for ‘plotting’ to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have decided to seek the assistance of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the US to retrieve the data.
Sources said that though the Pune police obtained reports from four different forensic laboratories, including Hyderabad Forensic Lab stating that no data was stored in the hard disk, they nonetheless decided to send it to the FBI, suspecting that there might be data in a hidden form in the disk on the advice of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The sources further said that the Pune police investigating the cases of waging of war against the nation and plotting to assassinate Modi registered against Varavara Rao and others feel that the FBI officials might succeed in recovering data using cutting edge technology.
On January 1, 2018, communal violence broke out in Koregaon Bhima village day after some people made fiery speeches at a meeting organised by Maoists in Pune.
Police arrested some suspects in connection with the violence. Police registered cases against nine Left wing activists including Telugu writer Varavara Rao, Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Shoma Sen, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Sudha Bharadwaj. Later, all the nine were arrested by the Pune police.
On November 17, 2018, the Pune police arrested Varavara Rao from his residence in Hyderabad. At the time of arrest, they seized the hard disk and others articles from his house.