ads header

Breaking News

5 activists arrested: Supreme Court to today hear plea questioning why they were taken into custody

5 activists arrested: Supreme Court to today hear plea questioning why they were taken into custody

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday agreed to hear a plea questioning Tuesday's arrest of five activists for alleged Maoist links. It will hear the plea later in the day, at 3:45 pm.
Five eminent people moved the SC on Wednesday questioning the arrests of the activists Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, and P Varavara Rao. The petitioners said their arrest and them being charged with the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act is an attempt to muzzle voices of dissent.

The petitioners requested the SC to thoroughly scrutinise and investigate the alleged false charges slapped against the human right activists. They also sought an immediate stay on the arrests as well as the release of the activists and requested the SC to seek an explanation from Maharashtra government.

The petitioners are Romila Thapar, Devki Jain, Prabhat Patnaik, Satish Deshpande and Maya Daruwala. They are seeking an independent probe into the arrests made by Maharashtra Police of these human right activists and lawyers allegedly for their nexus with the violence in Bhima-Koregaon on January 1 this year.

Lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi mentioned the petition before the Chief Justice of India who agreed to hear the petition later today.

Police on Tuesday arrested the five activists during simultaneous multi-city raids that began early in the day, in Mumbai, Thane, Hyderabad, Ranchi, Delhi and Faridabad. Police alleged these activists have links with the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).

The raids and arrests were in connection with the Elgar Parishad, a public meeting held in Pune on December 31, 2017, a day before the violence at Koregaon Bhima, 60km from Pune.

“We have made these arrests on the basis of incriminating evidence collected during our investigations and the documents recovered from the five activists arrested on June 6. The names of those arrested today figure in these documents,” said Pune police on Tuesday.

No comments