For Central security agencies and anti-Naxal sleuths Kobad Ghandy may have been a relatively new face, but the Naxalite ideologue’s name had made it to police records in Mumbai much earlier, in 1975.

Many in the security circles agree that this recorded entry—with the then Special Branch I, Criminal Investigation Department Bombay Police — gives a “very good indication” of his early influences and beliefs.

Months before the Emergency was declared, the Bombay police had begun rounding up “extremists” who were allegedly making “anti-establishment thoughts public”. One of them was comrade Sunder Navalkar, then a Khalsa College professor. She was brought to the office of the Special Branch and interrogated for making extremist statements.

At her Dadar residence, police allegedly found extremist literature and methods of carrying out Naxal attacks. The interrogation by the then Deputy Commissioner of Police, (SB 1), J V Pai and Assistant Commissioner of Police N S Nadkarni lasted many hours, with Navalkar “essaying her thoughts on extremist movement and the social cause”. It was only towards the end, says a retired police officer, that Navalkar spoke about her contacts and some of her “best” students, most of them fresh out of degree colleges. “... and, Kobad. He is the brightest. I see a future in him,” she said.

Ghandy was then studying Chartered Accountancy in London. But much before he left for studies abroad he had interacted with the “like-minded people” and attended many lectures in Dadar. Sources in the Mumbai Police said according to old records, he had been under surveillance since then.

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