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Accused in Elgar case get 10 days to verify data

Hindustan Times, Pune | ByShalaka Shinde
Jan 02, 2020 04:56 PM IST

Additional sessions judge SR Navander pushed for a speedy trial and expressed his disappointment at the defence for not having appointed an expert before Wednesday’s hearing even though the order was passed on December 18, 2019.

A Pune court granted on Wednesday an additional 10 days to nine activists, who are accused of conspiring to inflict violence two years ago at a Dalit celebration in Maharashtra’s Bhima Koregaon, for hiring a computer expert to verify electronic data provided by the police.

The victory memorial at Bhima Koregaon where the violence erupted.(HT/PHOTO)
The victory memorial at Bhima Koregaon where the violence erupted.(HT/PHOTO)

Additional sessions judge SR Navander pushed for a speedy trial and expressed his disappointment at the defence for not having appointed an expert before Wednesday’s hearing even though the order was passed on December 18, 2019.

“Let’s start batting. How many days should we stop the match for?” said the judge.

Nine prominent activists, and 10 others, are accused of plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi and waging a war against the country at an event called the Elgar Parishad in Pune on December 31, 2017 — a day before violence rocked Bhima Koregaon, in which one person was killed.

The activists are charged under the Unlawful Activity Prevention Act, along with Section 153-A (promoting enmity), 505(1)(B) (intent to cause fear or alarm), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy), 121 (waging war against the government), 124-A (sedition) and other sections of the Indian Penal Code.

The electronic data refers to the data presented by the court to the police, whose copies were given to the defence teams.

One of the defence lawyers, Bikram Kumar, claimed the data in the hard disks provided by the police was corrupt. Some others from the defence team claimed the data provided was incomplete. The nine accused activists were given two hard disks — one of 8TB and one of 2TB — that contained cloned copies of the data presented to the court by the police.

“Whatever has been provided to the court, has been provided to you in those hard disks. Speedy trial is the right of the accused. I am making it available to the accused,” said the judge.

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