01:1701:1701:17Bhima Koregaon: 5 activists arrested for alleged Maoist links

(With inputs from agencies)

NEW DELHI: The Maharashtra police conducted simultaneous raids in several cities and arrested five human rights activists - Sudha Bharadwaj , Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, and P Varavara Rao - on Tuesday for allegedly of inciting violence in the Bhima Koregaon violence in January. Police also alleged the arrested activists have links with the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).Here are all the latest developments:*The Supreme Court (SC) will hear a petition filed by historian Romila Thapar and four other eminent persons today at 3:45pm requesting the release of the arrested activists. The petitioners urged the SC to direct an independent probe into the arrest of the activists and said it was an attempt to muzzle dissent.*However, the Maharashtra Police said Tuesday they made the arrests on the basis of incriminating evidence of their role in the violence collected during their investigations and the documents recovered from the five activists. A search was conducted Tuesday at another activist Stan Swamy's residence in Ranchi as well. However, he was not arrested.*The police have booked all the accused under IPC sections 153-A (promoting disharmony, enmity between groups), 505 (inciting class, community of persons to commit any offence against any other class or community), 117 (abetting commission of offence by the public or by more than ten persons) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy)*Activists Rao and Bhardwaj were detained in Hyderabad and Faridabad, respectively. Navlakha was arrested from Delhi.*Ferriera and Gonsalves were arrested in Mumbai. Poet Rao and activists Gonsalves and Ferreira were brought to Pune late Tuesday night.*Later in the day, a plea was filed in the Delhi court seeking a stay on the transfer of Navlakha to Pune. Delhi High Court stayed the transit remand of Navlakha to Pune and put him under house arrest until the case is heard Wednesday.*Separately, a petition was filed in Punjab and Haryana High Court for a stay on Bharadwaj's transit remand, following which an interim order was given that she will not be arrested and will stay under the supervision of police for three days after which another hearing will be scheduled.*Pawan Verma, national general secretary of the JD(U), which is an NDA ally, said that the government must show it has evidence to back up its actions against the alleged Maoist sympahisers. If the evidence is not convincing, he said, then such action will be “ominously reminiscent” of what happened during the Emergency.*CPM leader Prakash Karat said the raids were an attack on democratic rights and demanded that all cases against the arrested activists be withdrawn.*In a joint statement, activists including Admiral L. Ramdas (retd), Harsh Mander, journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani, and social activists Teesta Setalvad and Swami Agnivesh , among others, said terms like "urban naxals" are being invented "to stifle any criticism of the government".*Congress chief Rahul Gandhi criticised the arrests saying there is only one NGO in the country and that is RSS. Further, taking a jibe at 'New India', he said “jail all activists and shoot those that complain”.*Countering Rahul’s statement, Kiren Rijiju, minister of State for Home, took to Twitter and said that even Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had declared that Maoists are the number one threat to India's internal security but the Congress president openly supports the sympathisers of the Maoists. “Keep national security above politics,” Rijiju added.