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The Bombay high court has rapped the Maharashtra Police for holding a press conference on the arrest of the human rights activists when the matter was sub judice.
On August 31, the Maharashtra police held a press conference in which they said there was ‘conclusive proof’ to link the arrested activists to Maoists, adding a letter exchanged by an arrested activist spoke of planning a ‘Rajiv Gandhi-like incident to end Modi-raj’.
Pune police had on August 28 raided the homes of prominent Left-wing activists in several states and arrested five of them — Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira in Mumbai, Sudha Bharadwaj in Faridabad and Gautam Navalakha in Delhi.
The raids were carried out as part of a probe into the Elgaar Parishad, which allegedly triggered violence at Koregaon-Bhima in Pune district the next day.
The Supreme Court has ordered that the five should be kept under house arrest till September 6.
