The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Pune Police to present before it “one document” showing the involvement of five activists in supporting Maoist rebels.
Lawyer and trade union activist Sudha Bhardwaj, Telugu poet P Varavara Rao, activist Gautam Navlakha, and lawyers Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves were arrested on August 26 for alleged links with left-wing rebels called Naxals or Maoists.
Police allege the arrests were part of their probe into an event called Elgar Parishad in Pune on December 31, 2017, when activists and Dalit organisations came together. The next day, violence broke out at Bhima Koregaon, about 40 km from Pune, as tens of thousands of Dalits celebrated the 200th anniversary of an 1818 war between the British army, manned mainly by Dalits, and the state’s Peshwa rulers.
The Supreme Court had extended the activists’ house arrest till September 19.