Major firms accused of funding Maoists
A Maoist leader who was arrested in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand last month has reportedly revealed during interrogation that his banned party received funds from some leading businesses.
'Many big companies regularly pay a levy to our parties in both Bihar and Jharkhand,' Narla Ravi Sharma, whose nom de guerre was Arjun and was originally an agricultural scientist, apparently said during interrogation.
After interrogating Sharma, who was in charge of the group's operations in Bihar and Jharkhand states, the investigators obtained a list of the companies, which are big players in the metals, mining, steel and manufacturing sectors in eastern India.
The investigators reportedly got to know of the secret funding from the laptop, diaries and letters that police recovered from Sharma and his wife, B. Anuradha, also a Maoist leader.
CNN-IBN channel reported that big companies, 'prominent on India's stock markets', were funding the Maoists.
The BBC also said it had a copy of Sharma's interrogation report.
In the report, Sharma said that all members of the Maoist squads were paid monthly wages and the annual expenditure of the Maoists in Bihar and Jharkhand was about eight million rupees (HK$1.3 million).
Investigators believe that across the country many businesses could be providing funds to the Maoists and Sharma's revelations could be 'just the tip of the iceberg'.
'They forcibly collect the levy, by force and use of arms. The corporates pay them and the Maoists run their organisation with this money,' K.P.S. Gill, a well-known counter-insurgency expert, said.
In the past, in northeastern state of Assam, tea, oil and construction companies were accused of providing funds to the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam and other groups. Firms privately say that they usually pay up to avoid disruption in their business and ensure the safety of their employees, who in many cases were abducted by the insurgents and released on payment of a ransom.
