Pune police commissioner K Venkatesham says that the police have enough evidence against all the five Left-wing activists arrested on August 28 in a nationwide crackdown. (Photo: Twitter/@ANI)

With the Supreme Court coming down heavily on the government and Maharashtra police for apparent procedural lapses in the arrest of five prominent Left-wing activists on August 28, Pune police commissioner K Venkatesham has defended the nationwide crackdown saying there is "enough evidence collected scientifically".

Addressing a press conference in Pune on the Bhima Koregaon case, Venkatesham said, "August 28 searches were carried out and arrests made on the basis of evidence collected from searches conducted in the month of May."

Venkatesham said that police had incriminating evidence about weapons, weapon purchase authorisation, instigating violence against security forces and recruitment and training of young men. "We have enough evidence against the accused," Venkatesham said.

"The documents taken to Delhi were in Marathi. It was explained to them (the accused) in Hindi," he said. The court had taken objection of the documents being only in Marathi while the raids were conducted in regions where Hindi is the primary language. "The Supreme Court has given us time and we will submit affidavit in time," the Pune police chief said.

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Venkatesham dismissed the charge that the police had weak evidence to target the accused. He said, "We have evidence, which is scientifically collected. Whatever evidence we have is enough to charge them. All the evidence will be used in the charges against the accused. Action was taken on the basis of evidence," he said.

The police commissioner said that the accused had links with banned organisations like CPI (Maoist). He asserted that the police followed all the procedures during arrest. "Allegations made are baseless," he said.

Venkatesham maintained that the police have evidence to show that arms purchase was planned. He said, "Catalogue shows procurement of M4 guns of the US make." He also said that police suspected links with terrorist organisations "and we will tell that in court" about it.

"We are doing an analysis of items recovered during the searches. The Supreme Court has asked us to file a detailed affidavit and we will do so. We will take the investigation to a logical end," Venkatesham said.

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