KEY POINTS:
Police have widened their net in the search for people suspected of involvement in alleged paramilitary activity.
Officers conducted further raids on properties in Palmerston North, Wellington and Lake Waikaremoana, it was revealed yesterday.
A spokeswoman for police national headquarters said two properties in Palmerston North, one in Lower Hutt, one in Wellington, and one at Lake Waikaremoana were searched.
No items were seized and no arrests made, meaning the tally of people taken into custody in this week's raids remained at 17.
The property searched at Waikaremoana, southwest of Gisborne, belongs to Joe Takuta.
Mr Takuta, 48, could not be contacted yesterday, but his brother Piripi confirmed that the raid had taken place at Mr Takuta's house at the lake overnight on Tuesday.
He said the raid was not surprising because members of the Tuhoe tribe from across the rohe (tribal territory) had been communicating with one another about the police action.
"We know what's going on," Piripi Takuta said. "We've got our own communications. We're all one big family."
He said Tuhoe members in Ruatoki, where the first raids took place on Monday, had phoned and told those at Waikaremoana and other places of the situation.
Mr Takuta said Waikaremoana, like Ruatoki, was a gateway to the Urewera Ranges, Tuhoe's traditional tribal land.
He said Tuhoe activist Tame Iti had been wrongly targeted in the raids and the paramilitary camp police alleged had been operating in the ranges near Ruatoki was "not a terrorist group".
Mr Takuta said all Tuhoe people went into the bush to collect medicines and plants to eat, and to hunt. "That's why we have guns."
The raids had scared people at Ruatoki when any issues the police had could have been resolved through talks, he said.
"They shouldn't do that to these people, our very old and very young. There are marae there where they can go. We're not in a good position to make comment. We just don't want any drama."
