Retired top cop says gangster helped police against Naxalites

Hyderabad: As the allegations of patronage and help given to the Naxal-turned-informer-turned-gangster Nayeem have caused a disquiet among many senior serving and retired police officers and the Special Investigation Team is thinking of questioning all those whose names have been mentioned in his diary, a senior retired officer admitted that the gangster had supported the police in anti-Naxalite operations.

Sriram Tiwari, who had led the anti-Naxalite operations at the peak of Left-wing violence in Andhra Pradesh in late 1990s and headed the anti-naxalite Special Investigation Bureau, said the relations between Nayeem and his department were purely professional and there was nothing personal about it.

As speculation is rife that many police officials with whom Nayeem had worked as informer had later used him for their personal ends, including land deals, extortion and settlements, 1982 batch IPS officer Tiwari strongly denied any such links with him. “I never met him after 2000 when I was transferred out of SIB,” he told the media.

Tiwari said the intelligence department had used Nayeem’s services and paid him. “I met him a couple of times for professional reasons, nothing beyond that,” he said.

Though it was well known in the police and government circles that the renegade Naxalite had turned informer and had been extending help in the elimination of top Maoists, it is for the first time that a top police official of that period has come out openly with the facts.

Admitting that he met Nayeem and discussed with him Naxalite activity and that the gangster was also in touch with the other officers of SIB, Tiwari refused to divulge details of those discussions and the nature of help Nayeem had provided. “It will be unprofessional to reveal it,” he said.

He rued that some officials in the department were trying to malign him by spreading falsehood about links with Nayeem.

Interestingly, Nayeem was also an accused in the killing of senior IPS officer K.S. Vyas, who was the founder of another anti-Naxal force, Greyhound. Vyas was shot dead by armed Naxalites in the heart of Hyderabad in March 1993 when he was jogging in Lal Bahadur Stadium in the evening.

Tiwari said after the incident, Nayeem surrendered to the police and might have been paid some money by the government as per the official policy.

He said that Nayeem had turned hostile against the Naxalites and was determined to eliminate the Naxalites from the state.

Tiwari’s version has come in the backdrop of rumours that many police officials including IPS officers and even a director-general of police had links with Nayeem and used his services for land deals and other activities.

The diary and other documents recovered from various houses of Nayeem and his associates continue to create waves. According to one of the entries in the diaries, Nayeem was planning to launch a Telugu TV news channel by investing Rs10 crore and had made an advance payment of Rs3 crore to a journalist in his home district Nalgonda.

His henchmen were already in to the cable network business in Nalgonda, sources said.

According to the officials investigating the case, Nayeem was in a hurry to extort at least Rs200 crore more, undergo plastic surgery and flee to Dubai or East Africa and turn a businessman. “We are looking into all these aspects,” a senior officer said.

Police have arrested five of Nayeem’s associates including Riyaz, Saleem, driver Sridhar and Balram and one Khaja in Goa. They are being questioned about the activities of Nayeem, his sources of income and details of his plots of land, farm houses, residences and other property believed to be spread in several states.