Maoist backer held with girlfriend in Nagpur after anti-Operation Sindoor post

NAGPUR: A top Maoist sympathizer based in Kerala was picked up from a central Nagpur hotel at Marwadi Chowk on Thursday, with intelligence agencies and city police jointly collaborating on his dramatic arrest. He was found closeted with his girlfriend, a student of a reputed Nagpur college. Charged with waging war against India, his arrest followed an objectionable Instagram post, where he brandished two guns in each hand and criticised ‘Operation Sindoor'.Rejaz M Sheeba Sydeek, president of Democratic Students Union, Kerala chapter, was mobilising funds, preparing propaganda material, and gearing up to publish a journal — ‘Nazariya' — in support of a nationwide campaign to pressurize the govt to call truce with Maoists.Masquerading as a student activist and journalist, Sydeek was a key urban Maoist operative who was entrusted with forming covert student groups in educational institutions and spreading the anti-govt ideology of the banned CPI (Maoist), said a senior security officer. Sydeek, who was earlier quizzed by Kerala ATS for his pro-Hamas campaign, was remanded in police custody for five days."Sydeek was networking with many city-based frontal leaders and elsewhere in India, including Delhi. He was also part of the Committee Against State Repression (CASR), which criticises every action carried out by the govt," said the source. Sydeek was arrested by a crime branch team led by senior inspector Kamlakar Gaddime, under the supervision of CP Ravinder Singal.Police sources said, Sydeek was also part of the Maoists' nationwide urban network to build strong consensus against security forces' ‘Operation Kagar' which is underway to regain central India's hinterlands of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and Odisha, which were earlier controlled by the guerrillas' jantana sarkar (people's governance).Three books on banned Maoist ideology, including one on late ideologue GN Saibaba were seized from him, pointing to Sydeek's preparation to compile literature condemning the operations in Karregutta hills, which was once a Maoist citadel but is now being recaptured by security forces. Police came across literature — ‘Stop Encirclement of Karregutta' — in Sydeek's possession. Another document, titled ‘Operation Kagar to Operation Sindoor', was also seized.The booklet was supposed to spread the propaganda in urban networks for peace talks from ‘Delhi to Bastar'.Sydeek was learnt to have reached the city on May 5 to meet his girlfriend, a native of Patna, before checking into the hotel. The two met on Instagram and the woman too is heavily influenced by Maoist ideology, said a police source.Sources in security agencies stated Sydeek was entrusted with the social media campaigns of Maoist frontal organisations. Sydeek came under the intelligence radar after his posts supporting Maoists and condemning Operation Sindoor became viral. Police were aware of his occasional forays to the city and they waited for him to return, before zeroing in on him.According to a source, Sydeek went to a firearms outlet at Gandhibagh and shot a picture of himself holding guns in each hand, captioning it with the phrase ‘to defend and to resist'. He then used a picture of a wounded child to question the Indian army on the propriety of the strikes.