‘They were doing underground illegal work’: Maharashtra police on arrested activists

The Maharashtra Police, criticised for the crackdown of five prominent activists, on Friday went public with documents and letters seized from their possession that the authorities claim, prove that the activists were working closely with Maoists and even facilitating purchase of weapons and grenades for them. Five activists — lawyer and trade union activist Sudha Bhardwaj, poet P Varavara Rao, activist Gautam Navlakha, and lawyers Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves — had been arrested this week. But the police has not been able to question them after the Supreme Court stopped Pune police from taking their custody and placed them under house arrest.