Pune police to send 3 activists back home after SC order

A court here today directed Pune police to send three activists, arrested for their suspected links to Maoists, back to their homes, after the Supreme Court ordered that they are kept under house arrest till September 6.

The Supreme Court has ordered that the five activists, arrested in connection with the Koregaon-Bhima violence case, be kept under house arrest, observing that dissent was the "safety valve" of democracy. District and sessions judge K D Vadhane ordered police to send Varavara Rao, Vernon Gonsalves, and Arun Ferreira back to their residences, where they will be kept under 'house arrest', an official said.

The three activists, along with two other activists Sudha Bharadwaj and Gautam Navlakha, were arrested yesterday from Hyderabad, Mumbai, Faridabad, and Delhi respectively.

While trade unionist and lawyer Bharadwaj is confined to her home in Faridabad and civil liberties activist Navlakha to his Delhi residence, Telugu poet Rao and activists Gonsalves and Ferreira were taken to Pune late last night.

As the apex court stayed the transit remand of Navlakha and Bharadwaj, Police could produce only Rao, Gonsalves and Ferreira in Pune court today, the official said. Public prosecutor Ujjwala Pawar sought 14 days' custody for the arrested activists. Judge Vadhane, after receiving the apex court's directions, ordered Pune police to send all three accused to their respective cities and put them under "house arrest" till further directions.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Shivaji Pawar, who is an investigation officer in the probe, said arrangements will be made to send the three activists to their respective cities. "We had contended before the court here to allow them to be put under arrest at a guest house in Pune.

However, due to specific directions of the apex court, the judge ordered that they are sent back to their respective cities for house arrest," he said.

The three activists may be sent back to their cities by tomorrow, police said. Pune police had arrested the five activists in connection with an FIR lodged after the 'Elgaar Parishad' conclave held in Pune on December 31 last year that had triggered violence at Koregaon-Bhima village.

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