Vijayawada, Nov 18: The presence of Maoists in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, and surrounding areas created a stir on Tuesday as police arrested 31 Naxals, including some top leaders belonging to Chhattisgarh.

As many as 27 Maoists were arrested from a four-storey building at New Autonagar in Kanuru neighbourhood in Vijayawada.

Most of the arrested Maoists were women, who had reportedly taken shelter in the guise of labourers.

Security personnel carried out searches following an intelligence alert that Maoists had taken shelter in the city.

Additional Director General (Intelligence) Mahesh Chandra Laddha said a total of 31 Maoists were arrested from Krishna district, Vijayawada and Kakinada

As a large number of migrant workers from other states, including Chhattisgarh, are employed in various factories and timber depots in and around Vijayawada, especially Autonagar, the Maoists had taken shelter so as not to arouse any suspicion.

Large-scale search operations were carried out to arrest the Maoists. It was immediately not clear if the security personnel seized any arms and explosives.

The searches are said to be linked to Tuesday’s operation by security forces in the forests of Alluri Sitharamaraju district in the Andhra-Odisha border area, in which six Maoists, including top commander and CPI(Maoist) Central Committee member Hidma and his wife Raji, were killed.

Facing the heat due to intensified operations by the security forces in Chhattisgarh, several Maoists from that state are believed to have entered Andhra Pradesh

ADG Intelligence said they were keeping a close watch on the movements of Maoists for the last month.

Some Maoists and sympathisers were suspected of having moved to the interior parts of Andhra Pradesh.

Police were questioning the owner of the building in Autonagar and were trying to identify those who had given shelter to Maoists and their sympathisers. An investigation was also conducted on whether they were planning any attacks.

Police officers said such a large number of Maoists were not arrested from any city in Andhra Pradesh, even when Maoist activity was at its peak.

New Delhi, Nov 18: The Patiala House Court on Tuesday sent bomber Dr Umar Muhammad’s aide, Jasir Bilal Wani, alias Danish, to 10 days of NIA custody.

Earlier in the day, the NIA produced Wani before the court in connection with the Delhi blast that claimed 13 lives. On Monday, the agency arrested Wani, another key associate who had allegedly provided technical support to the terrorists involved in the explosion.

Wani, a resident of Kashmir, was arrested by the NIA from Srinagar. According to the agency, investigations revealed that he had allegedly provided technical assistance for carrying out terror attacks. He was reportedly involved in modifying drones and attempting to develop rockets ahead of the deadly car bomb blast.

The accused, a resident of Qazigund in the Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir, was said to be an active co-conspirator in the attack. He had worked closely with the terrorist Dr Umar Muhammad Nabi to plan and execute the act of terror.

The NIA continues to probe multiple angles to uncover the full conspiracy behind the bombing. Several teams from the anti-terror agency are pursuing various leads and conducting searches across multiple states in an effort to identify every individual involved in the attack.

Earlier on Monday, a Delhi court also sent Aamir Rashid Ali, a Kashmiri resident accused of conspiring with Muhammad, to 10 days of NIA custody. Ali, in whose name the car used in the blast was registered, was arrested on November 16. He was apprehended in Delhi during a large-scale search operation launched after the NIA took over the case from the Delhi Police, an official said in a statement.

According to the NIA’s findings, Ali, a resident of Samboora in Pampore, Jammu and Kashmir, had allegedly conspired with suicide attacker Umar Nabi to execute the terror strike. The agency stated that Ali had travelled to Delhi to help purchase the car later used as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (IED) to carry out the blast.

New Delhi, Nov 18: The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notices to the Union government, Anil Ambani, and Reliance Communications Ltd. (RCOM) on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking a court-monitored probe into an alleged “large-scale, organised bank fraud” perpetrated by the company and its group entities.

A Bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) B.R. Gavai and comprising Justice K Vinod Chandran sought responses from all respondents within three weeks.

The plea seeks the constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising officers from the CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED), contending that only a judicially supervised probe can ensure a “comprehensive, coordinated, and transparent investigation” into the alleged offences.

As per the PIL, the FIR registered by the CBI in August this year covers only a fraction of the financial irregularities despite extensive material pointing to diversion of funds, round-tripping, fictitious transactions, and systematic misuse of bank loans by RCOM and its group companies.

The plea alleged that the State Bank of India (SBI), the lead lender in a consortium that extended Rs. 31,580 crore between 2013 and 2017 waited five years to lodge an FIR despite being in possession of a detailed forensic audit report since 2020.

“Despite being in possession of the 2020 Forensic Audit Report, based on which the complaint was filed which contains detailed issues regarding diversion, evergreening, fictitious transactions, and use of shell entities, the bank chose to take no statutory action until August 2025, a delay that cannot be explained without examining whether officers acted in collusion or with deliberate intent to shield the borrower group,” the plea stated.

“The five-year delay in filing the FIR by the bank clearly indicates involvement of bank officials and other public servants whose conduct enabled, concealed, or facilitated the fraud,” it added.

The petition, relying on multiple materials, including, SBI and RBI forensic audits, the Grant Thornton CIRP report, technical analyses, news investigations, and the Cobrapost report, argued that the ADA Group engaged in a “sustained, organised and coordinated scheme” to siphon public money.

“These reports uniformly demonstrate diversion of funds, round-tripping, misuse of external borrowings, fabrication of accounting entries, and operation of shell entities,” the plea alleged.

It further stated that suspected shell companies such as Netizen Engineering Pvt Ltd and Kunj Bihari Developers Pvt Ltd “were found to be non-existent at their registered addresses”, demonstrating a deliberate corporate structure created to siphon and launder public funds.

Despite searches at over 35 locations and alleged frauds aggregating to more than Rs. 20,000 crore, the PIL stated that “no arrests have been made, no assets have been seized, and no accounts have been frozen.”

“This indicates difficulty on part of the investigating agencies and necessitates judicial supervision,” the plea contended, adding that a fraud of such magnitude “involving public money and public institutions cannot be investigated in a piecemeal manner.”

The PIL also sought the constitution of an expert committee under the supervision of the Supreme Court to recommend structural reforms in banking and regulatory oversight.