E-Paper
No coercive action against Navlakha until November 12: court to Pune police
DGP Pawar told the court that police want to investigate Navlakha’s connection with Hizbul Mujahideen, CPI (M)), finance to terror activities, recruitment of students for training in Naxal areas
A special court in the city asked the Pune police to not take coercive action against Gautam Navlakha, civil rights activist and journalist, accused in the Elgar Parishad case, after hearing arguments for and against his anticipatory bail application on Thursday.
While the decision on the anticipatory bail application is slated for November 12, the order preventing the Pune police from taking coercive action against Navlakha was passed by additional sessions judge SR Navandar.
During the argument, submissions were made by the police, represented by district government pleader (DGP) Ujwala Pawar, and Navlakha represented by advocate Ragini Ahuja in absence of advocate Yug Chaudhry who represented Navlakha in Bombay High Court (HC) as well as the Supreme Court (SC).
DGP Pawar told the court that the police want to investigate Navlakha’s connection with the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), Communist Party of India (Maoist) (CPI (M)), finance to terror activities and recruitment of students for training in Naxal dominated areas.
“He met Shakeel Bakshi of Islamic Student League (ISL) and told him that CPI(M) wants to establish contact with Hizbul Mujahideen,” said DGP Pawar.
Advocate Ahuja told the court that the connection between Navlakha and central committee of the CPI(M), and people in Kashmir, is in the capacity of a journalist. “Merely being in touch with CC (of CPI(M)) is not proof of his involvement in furtherance of their cause,” said advocate Ahuja.
She also told the court that the police has documents from Navlakha’s devices since August 28, 2018, when he was first arrested and later placed in house-arrest before being granted interim relief. However, the police have not called him for interrogation even once.
To this, DGP Pawar said that the police could not interrogate Navlakha without police custody as he could tamper with data related to police evidence which may still be in his possession. Furthermore, Shivaji Pawar, assistant commissioner of police, who is investigating the case, submitted two documents in a sealed envelop to the court in the form of evidence against Navlakha.
“These two documents were seized from Navlakha’s possession. The first document is a part of the chargesheet while the second document is his (Navlakha) reply to a letter,” said DGP Pawar.
Navlakha’s anticipatory bail application was being heard at the Bombay High Court and then the Supreme Court which has granted him interim protection till November 12, 2019.
“Since the protection granted by the apex court vide order dated October 15, 2019, passed in special leave to appeal(criminal) No.8862 of 2019, is granted for four weeks, it is expected that the special court would decide the application, as expeditiously as possible,” read the HC order issued on November 4. The anticipatory bail application was filed in Pune court on Tuesday, a day after the HC order was issued.
