National Investigation Agency (NIA) has sent notices summoning a university professor K Satyanarayana and a senior journalist KV Kurmanath, both sons-in-law of revolutionary poet Varavara Rao, to Mumbai on 9 September in connection with the Bheema Koragaon case.

Mr Rao is in jail for past 18 months for his alleged links to a conspiracy to eliminate Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the family had been trying secure his bail and ensure his access to medical treatment after his condition deteriorated. K Satyanarayana, a Dalit academician issued a statement about the notices sent by NIA.

“I wish to share the distressing news that NIA, Mumbai summoned me to appear before it as a witness under section 160 CrPC and also under section 91 of CrPc on 09.09.2020.

My co-brother KV Kurnanath, a senior journalist, was also summoned to appear at the same time and date,” wrote Prof. K Satyanarayana of English and Foreign Language University (EFLU). He went on to add that his flat was raided by Pune police on August, 2018 on the pretext of collecting evidence against revolutionary poet Varavara Rao although he had denied any links to the Bheema Koregaon case and it had caused him “mental agony.”

“It is a fact that I am related to Varavara Rao but I reiterate that I have that I have no connection with the Bhima Koregaon case,” said Prof. K Satyanarayana.

“NIA notice adds to our family distress at a time when Varavara Rao’s health conditions is not very good and the pandemic is fast spreading in Mumbai. I was summoned to Mumbai in these terrible times,” he further said in the statement. Varavara Rao was arrested by Pune police on August, 2018. Initially, he was kept under house arrest but in November he was shifted to a prison in Maharashtra. The octogenarian has not been keeping well and his family had said that he was being denied access to medical treatment although he was unable to speak, walk or go to the toilet. So far repeated appeals for bail have been turned down.

Meanwhile, Telangana unit of BJP has written to Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan seeking her intervention in celebrating 17 September as Telangana Liberation Day. The state of Hyderabad under Nizam joined the Union of India on the same day in 1948, a year after India got freedo from British Rule.