BOMBAY: A countrywide search of the offices of the Communist Party of India and of allied organisations, including the Kisan Sabha, the Students Federation and the Friends of the Soviet Union, was made today [Jan 14] under the direction of the Government of India in connection with the publication, six months ago, of a series of articles entitled the “Operation Asylum” in the Communist Party weekly, the ‘Peoples Age’.

The articles purported to disclose the contents of “Top secret documents of the General Army Headquarters called ‘Operation Asylum’ regarding methods that the army should adopt in dealing with future unrests in India”.

Simultaneous searches which lasted several hours were carried out by the police from early morning in the Central Headquarters of the Communist Party at Bombay [etc].

…Several leaders, including Dr. G. Adhikari, Editor of the ‘Peoples Age’, [etc] were arrested and loads of papers and pamphlets, re-publishing the articles, were seized. In Bombay an application was made on behalf of the party before the Chief Presidency Magistrate, stating that the action of the police [in] seizing “irrelevant documents” was unjustifiable.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2022