SC today to hear plea questioning the arrests of 5 activists

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today has agreed to hear a plea regarding arrests of five prominent activists for alleged Moaist links and scheduled the hearing at 3.45 pm today.

Just a day after 5 prominent human rights activists were arrested by Pune Police who allege that the provocative speeches of these activists led to the Koregaon-Bhima violence in January this year, TOI reported.

Five Petitioners have moved the Supreme court today questioning the arrests of human rights activists Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, and P Varavara Raa, urging the apex court to thoroughly investigate the allegations against these activists by the Maharashtra Police along with demanding an explanation of the same.

The petitioners Romila Thapar, Devki Jain, Prabhat Patnaik, Satish Deshpande and Maya Daruwala stated that this was an attempt to silence the voices of dissent. They also sought independent probe into the arrests while seeking immediate stay as well as release of the arrested activists.

Lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi mentioned the petition before the Chief Justice of India who has agreed to hear the petition later today.

Pune Police arrested five activists during simultaneous multi-city raids that began early in the morning yesterday in Mumbai, Thane, Hyderabad, Ranchi, Delhi and Faridabad yesterday in connection with the Elgar Parishad public conference held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which the Police claimed led to the Koregaon Bhima violence the next day.

“We have made these arrests on the basis of incriminating evidence collected during our investigations and the documents recovered from the five activists arrested on June 6. The names of those arrested today figure in these documents,” said Pune police on Tuesday.