arrest of five activists

Elgar

Elgar

(With inputs from Agencies)

NEW DELHI: The Bombay high court (HC) on Monday admonished the Maharashtra police for holding a press conference to discuss the recenteven though the matter was sub judice.The court delivered this rap while adjourning a plea demanding an NIA probe into the matter of the activists arrested for allegedly inciting violence in Bhima Koregaon on January 1.The Bombay HC adjourned the plea to September 7 and said the Maharashtra police shouldn't have held a press briefing - which it did on Friday - while the matter was still in court. The court also adjourned the plea because copies of the petition weren't served to all the concerned persons.On August 28, police arrested five activists - Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj and Gautam Navalakha - in a multi-city raid that began early that morning. They were arrested for not just allegedly inciting the January 1 violence but also for alleged links to banned Maoist groups.A day after the arrest, the Supreme Court directed they all be kept under house arrest and added that "dissent is the safety valve of democracy" . The top court said the house arrest would continue until September 6."Dissent is the safety valve of democracy and if you don't allow these safety valves it will burst," a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra and comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said.Dealing a blow to the Maharashtra police, the apex court questioned it for arresting the activists nine months after the violence between Dalits and upper caste Peshwas in Koregaon-Bhima village near Pune following theParishad, or conclave, on December 31 last year.Provocative speeches were made at theParishad, which triggered the violence, according to an FIR registered in a Pune police station.The apex court also issued notice to the Maharashtra government and the state police on the plea by five leading intellectuals, including historian Romila Thapar and economists Prabhat Patnaik and Devaki Jain, against the arrests in connection with the case.