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Elgar Parishad accused are helping political prisoners, says public prosecutor
Speaking during the third day of Pawar’s argument against the bail application filed by arrested activists, she gave the benefit of doubt to Justice PB Sawant who was present during the Elgar Parishad in Pune on December 31, 2017
At a special court in Pune on Thursday, Ujjwala Pawar, district government pleader, continued drawing parallels between work of Elgar Parishad accused activists’ and the work of Communist Party of India (Maoist), a banned organisation.
Speaking during the third day of Pawar’s argument against the bail application filed by arrested activists, she gave the benefit of doubt to Justice PB Sawant who was present during the Elgar Parishad in Pune on December 31, 2017.
Pawar brought up the name of Indian Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL) to which arrested advocate Surendra Gadling was general secretary.
“This organisation IAPL, of which Surendra Gadling was general secretary, is a frontal organisation of CPI(M) which is a banned terrorist organisation. They are helping political prisoners,” said Pawar. In a letter allegedly written by Gadling, Pawar said that he wrote about travelling to Kolkata on November 16, 2018, in order to meet “underground party members to discuss IPAL”.
“These people wanted to influence the intelligentsia from various parts of the country,” said Pawar, while referring to a letter allegedly written by one of the arrested activists to a certain Comrade Prakash. Comrade Prakash is, according to Pawar’s arguments, a high-ranking official in the CPI(M) cadre.
She also levelled accusations against the fact-finding committees named by IAPL in the matter of encounters held in Naxal areas of Chhattisgarh.
She read a letter written allegedly by Gadling to Comrade Prakash that refers to “12-20 people of our sanghatana that were killed” in an encounter with security forces. Fact finding committee was named by IAPL to spread a message that the killed people were innocent tribals and not members of CPI(M), according to Pawar. “This was the main agenda of this fact-finding committee. They created hatred in the minds of people to destabilise the government,” she said in open court.
Pawar went on to slam IAPL for allegedly supporting and helping convicted Naxalite JN Saibaba. She cited another letter allegedly written by one of the accused people that mentioned Rona Wilson’s involvement in an event that was to be held in Delhi to help Saibaba. The letter spoke about a function at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar to highlight points from Saibaba judgement that were in his favour.
The hearing in the matter will continue in the court of special judge KD Vadane.
