Researcher Rona Wilson and activist Sudhir Dhawale, accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, were released on bail from a Navi Mumbai prison on Friday, more than six years after they were arrested. The duo walked out of the Taloja jail after completing bail formalities before the special NIA court, over a fortnight after they were granted bail by the Bombay High Court. The HC granted bail to Wilson and Dhawale on January 8, noting they had been in jail since 2018 and the trial in the case, in which anti-terror act UAPA has been invoked, was yet to start. Apart from Dhawale and Wilson, 14 other activists and academicians were arrested in the case. Eight of them have been granted bail till now, with one, Mahesh Raut, still in jail as the appeal filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) against his bail is pending before the Supreme Court. Jesuit priest and activist Stan Swamy, one of the accused, died in 2021 while lodged in judicial custody. The case pertains to provocative speeches allegedly delivered at the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, triggering violence at Koregaon-Bhima, a village outside Pune city, the next day. The Pune police had claimed the conclave was backed by Maoists. The NIA later took over the probe.
The Bombay High Court has granted bail to researcher Rona Wilson and activist Sudhir Dhawale, arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case. The court noted that they had been in jail since 2018 and the trial was yet to start. The court said the two had spent more than six years in jail as under-trial prisoners. The NIA, the prosecution agency, did not seek a stay to the HC order. Eight other activists have been granted bail in the case, which pertains to provocative speeches allegedly delivered at the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017.
While the National Investigation Agency (NIA) sought a stay on the operation of the bail order so as to appeal before the Supreme Court, the HC refused the request, stating that Babu has been in jail for over five years.
Prolonged incarceration without trial amounts to infringement of the right to life under the Constitution, the Bombay high court said while urging a special court to expedite the trial in the 2018 Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
'We have been fighting to treat political prisoners differently.' 'Except for Hyderabad and Kolkata, the concept of keeping political prisoners separate doesn't exist in India.'
Police on Tuesday said they have started recording statements of people associated with the controversial Veera Sathidar memorial programme held on May 13 in Nagpur, where the poem was recited, while an official informed investigation into the case was at a sensitive stage.
Kabir Kala Manch activists had allegedly made provocative speeches leading to violence at Koregaon Bhima in the district, according to an FIR registered at Vishrambaug police station after the event.
The case relates to Elgar Parishad, a conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017. Pune Police had alleged that it had been backed by Maoists, and provocative speeches made there led to caste violence near Bhima-Koregaon war memorial the next day.
'Shoma didn't have the luxury of time. She was already suffering from so many ailments.'
As the hearing started, Justice Bhat, who was on the bench with Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit, expressed his inability to be part of the hearing but did not elaborate on the reason.
She has been in custody as an undertrial since her arrest in 2018.
The HC had in its order last week said Bharadwaj was entitled to bail and its denial would be in breach of her fundamental right to life and personal liberty, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
The special court judge D E Kothalikar has asked the national probe agency to file its reply on the matter on November 26.
According to a media report published on Saturday, only one of the outfits to which eight of the arrested activists belonged was declared as unlawful.
Shivaji Pawar made a startling revelation: Though the subject matter of his investigation was the January 1 violence, he had not examined any of the witnesses to that violence.
Eight activists accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, who were denied default bail by the Bombay High Court earlier this month, told the HC on Thursday that they will file review petitions against the order which was based on a "factual error".
The Pune Police had moved the court Saturday for extension of the 90-day period for filing chargesheet against the five persons, citing fresh arrests in the case.
They also demanded action against officials of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is conducting a probe into the Elgar Parishad case, and former superintendent of the Taloja jail.
The law permits a person to approach the police or a magistrate to lodge a complaint and get their grievances addressed, the court noted.
Bhima Koregaon represents what the government can do in India against well meaning people who speak up against atrocities, who stand up for the weak and the dispossessed and for this reason alone as seen as enemies of the State and kept in prison for as long as the government can manage. So long as the rest of us do not speak up against this misbehaviour by the State, so long as we forget about those who have been made its victims, this behaviour will continue, asserts Aakar Patel.
'They have realised that class war is not possible in India, so they are trying to bring about a caste war.'
Minal Gadling, in her petition, claimed that all the arrested five, including her husband, have been in a false and mala fide way implicated in the case even when there was no involvement on their part in any such activity.
"How can the police do this? The matter is sub judice. The Supreme Court is seized of the matter. In such cases, revealing information pertaining to the case is wrong," Justice Bhatkar said.
There exists a curious link between Advocate Niteen Pradhan's client Milind Ekbote and Harshali Potdar: Both have blamed each other for the Bhima Koregaon violence, notes Jyoti Punwani.
A government lawyer told the Bombay high court on Friday that though prison inmates can talk to their relatives or lawyers on phone, she was not sure if the facility could be granted to activist Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
"We see no reason to interfere with the high court order," said a bench of Justices U U lalit, S Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi, refusing to consider the submissions raised by the NIA which had moved the apex court against the December 1 order.
'If we accept this, then in a few years we will not see a democratic India that we know'
Government rejects activists' request. Commission requests new witness to attend.
'It is a concocted letter and we suspect the IB (Intelligence Bureau) to be behind this game.' 'All the investigation agencies should have quietly gone about finding more about this alleged plot to kill the prime minister.' 'Why are you leaking such a letter that reveals the plot to the press as well as to BJP spokespersons?'
A police official said the five arrested are suspected to have Maoist links and had allegedly funded the Elgar Parishad conclave.
This senior cop who deposed in such detail about the Elgar Parishad, however, claimed to know nothing about the opposition to it from organisations such as Milind Ekbote's Samastha Hindu Aghadi as well as Pune's then Mayor Mukta Tilak.
Do Uddhav Thackeray, Aditya Thackeray, Sanjay Raut, and Sharad Pawar want the deaths of the Bhima Koregaon accused to be associated with their regime? asks Jyoti Punwani.
'The only way to kill time in prison is to read and she can't even do that properly any more.' 'Her knees, too, are in terrible shape. I could see how she was trying to hide her pain every time she got up from the bench where she was seated.'
He took up the causes of tribals marginalised after their lands has been taken over for dams, mines and townships, often without their consent.
The bench suggested that the hearing be adjourned "sine die" (adjournment of proceedings with no date of resumption).
Recently, the Bombay high court had set aside the lower court's order allowing extension of time to police to file its probe report against the rights activists in the violence case.
'Whenever Dalits have agitated on the streets, the government has blamed Naxalites.'
'These charges of the prosecution will fall to the ground and I am 100 per cent sure of that.'
Talking to reporters in Kolhapur, Pawar said it was not right on the part of the Centre to hand over the probe into the case, which was with the Pune police, to the NIA as law and order was a state subject. NCP leader and Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said Uddhav Thackeray had overruled him on the probe in the case.
The superintendent of Taloja jail has just been transferred. Does that signal a more human phase in prison for the Bhima Koregaon accused? asks Jyoti Punwani.
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