SC grants bail to Gautam Navlakha in 2018 Bhima Koregaon case
Lifting its stay on the December 2023 Bombay High Court order, the top court noted that he has already undergone incarceration for four years and the charges have not been framed.
Telugu poet and writer Varavara Rao, who was arrested on Tuesday by the Pune police for his alleged links with Maoists, reached home on Thursday morning after a Supreme Court directive to the effect.
Civil rights activist-lawyers Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves have also been put under house arrest.
The apex court had on Wednesday ordered that the five activists, arrested on August 28 in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence case of January 2018, should be kept under house arrest till the next hearing on the matter on September 6.
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“They (Pune police) brought him home at 7 in the morning. He was brought to the city by flight,” Rao’s wife Hemalatha told PTI, adding the police were not allowing anyone except his daughters and sons-in-law into or go out of the house.
Public Prosecutor Ujjwala Pawar had sought the police custody for all three.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central Zone) Viswa Prasad in a message said the Hyderabad police would be managing Rao’s house arrest.
Rao was arrested from Hyderabad, while activists Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Farreira were nabbed from Mumbai, trade union activist Sudha Bharadwaj from Faridabad in Haryana and activist Gautam Navlakha was arrested from New Delhi.
Read More | Bhima-Koregaon riots: Activist Sudha Bharadwaj put under house arrest
The Maharashtra police had arrested them in connection with an FIR lodged there following an event-‘Elgaar Parishad’ (conclave)- held on December 31 last year that had triggered violence at Koregaon-Bhima village.
Earlier, other activists who were arrested -lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj and activist-journalist Gautam Navlakha — were also ordered to be kept under house arrest.
(With agency inputs)
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