 In 2002, he attended the opening session of a conference organised by the Communist Party of India, Marxist Leninist Liberation, (CPI-MLL).Several prominent social activists, environmentalists, and writers-turned-activists like Mahashweta Devi, Arundhati Roy, Sandeep Pandey, Rajinder Sachar, Praful Bidwai, and Anand Patwardhan attended only the opening session of the six-day congress.Sandeep Pandey and other social activists did not attend the closing session in which the kin of about 1000 Naxalites who were killed in police action in Bihar were reportedly honoured.