Independent agencies find evidence was planted. Yet the 16 accused remain in jail, denied basic health needs, denied bail to honour dead family members one last time
This month marks five years since the first arrests in the Bhima Koregaon case.
A total of 16 people were arrested in the case, including Father Stan Swamy, who died in custody. Most of them remain in jail. None has been convicted in the case, none has been connected with violence in the place for which the matter is named. Read more
Thread by Amnesty India / @AIIndia (June 6, 2023):
In a series of arrests, 16 activists were imprisoned simply because they spoke up for the rights of the most marginalized in the country. Today, 5 years have passed since the first round of arrests of activists in the Bhima Koregaon case.
How & Why India’s Law Commission has urged a cap on Free Speech: Sedition
The 22nd Report of the Indian Law Commission flies in the face of serious judicial pronouncements, jurisprudence and modern thinking
Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned for sedition, because his speeches incited people to protest and caused an uprising against the government. While on trial he refers to Section 124-A of IPC as ‘Prince’ of all sections which try to supress the liberty of the citizens, as a classical law theorist he decides to disobey the law even if it is backed by sanctions because he believes the law and the larger system is not just and fair…
There have been multiple instances of misuse of sedition laws in India, to silence dissent and give greater power to the government. Here are some instances of the misuse of sedition laws in the country: Read more
A post on Tushar Kanti Bhattacharya’s Facebook page has a picture of his wife Shoma Sen, with the lines below reading: Five years of incarceration. Another post has pictures of her along with co-accused Surendra Gadling, Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson and Mahesh Raut. The lines read ‘Repeal UAPA: Behind bars five years and no charges framed, no bail’. A couple of likes can be seen in response. Read more
Five years behind bars for five activists – Without bail, without charges being framed, without justice!
06/06/2023
By Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR)
Five years behind bars for five activists
Without bail, without charges being framed, without justice!
Release all 15-surviving accused in the Bhima Koregaon case.
June 6, 2023 will mark five years that five activists are behind bars. They include Mahesh Raut, an anti-displacement campaigner, Rona Wilson, a political prisoners’ campaigner, Shoma Sen, a feminist activist and professor, Sudhir Dhawale, a Dalit rights activist and Surendra Gadling, a lawyer who takes people’s rights cases pro-bono. Read full statement
Five Years Since The First Arrests In Bhima-Koregaon Case
06/06/2023
Countercurrents.org / by Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisation (CDRO)
6th June 2018. The nation’s conscience suffered yet another attack by the arrests of leading intellectuals and democratic rights activists by the Pune police in connection with the so-called Bhima-Koregaon (BK) case. These arrests snowballed into a series of arrests in subsequent months. Five years have passed, and barring a few activists out on bail, the arrested persons are still languishing in jail without a charge sheet being filed. Through this statement, the CDRO once again tries to remember the incidents leading to these arrests and subsequent events; so that people can unite in a struggle for the release of the BK-16 and the repeal of draconian laws. Read full statement
Five years of Bhima Koregaon arrests: CDRO marks ‘black day’
06/06/2023
The Leaflet / by Sarah Thanawala
It was on this day in 2018 that five activists were first arrested by the Pune police in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad Maoist links and criminal conspiracy case. To mark this day, and by means of highlighting the plight of the arrested persons, the Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisation and People’s Union for Democratic Rights have issued press statements demanding the immediate release of all the persons behind bars in connection with the case. Read more
CASR: Release activists incarcerated in Bhima Koregaon Case
07/06/2023
Countercurrents.org / by Campaign Against State Repression
June 6th became a day of one of the most audacious attack by the Brahmanical Hindutva Fascist state on the Democratic rights and political activists and began new era of rampant use of UAPA and conspiracy cases, which was, although known to the working class, the peasantry and the oppressed, have been largely unknown to the Urban democratic movement. June 6th, 2018 marks the first arrest in the infamous Bhima Koregaon ‘Conspiracy’ case, after series of raids in April 2018. The police arrested Sudhir Dhawale, Surendra Gadling, Rona Wilson, Shoma Sen and Mahesh Raut. Read full statement
Five years after arrest, Bhima Koregaon case accused yet to get copies of proof against them
05/06/2023
The Hindu / by Sonam Saigal
Special Public Prosecutor rubbished the allegation and said most of the material have been shared with them
It has been six years since Sudhir Dhawale, an activist; Surendra Gadling, a criminal lawyer practising in Nagpur; Shoma Sen, professor and Head of Department, English at Nagpur University; activists Rona Wilson and Mahesh Raut were arrested in the caste-based violence that broke out at Bhima Koregaon in Pune in 2017. Read more
Shoma Sen, an accused in the case along with 15 other activists and academics, has been charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Sen has been incarcerated as an undertrial since June 6, 2018, and is lodged at the Byculla jail in Mumbai.
On Monday, a National Investigation Agency (NIA) court of special judge Rajesh Kataria continued hearing a discharge application filed by women’s rights activist and academic Shoma Sen, claiming discrepancies in the evidence against her in the Bhima Koregaon–Elgar Parishad Maoist links and criminal conspiracy case, and drawing a parallel with the allegations raised against Dalit scholar, academic activist and co-accused Dr Anand Teltumbde. Read more
Bombay High Court asks Varavara Rao to move division bench for permission to travel to Hyderabad for cataract surgery
05/06/2023
Bar & Bench / by Neha Joshi
Single-judge Justice SV Kotwal observed that the application by Rao amounted to seeking modification of his bail conditions as per which Rao cannot leave Mumbai during the trial.
The Bombay High Court on Monday directed P Varavara Rao, accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence case, to approach a division bench of the High Court for permission to travel from Mumbai to Hyderabad to undergo cataract surgery. Read more
HC division bench to hear Varavara Rao’s plea for cataract surgery in Hyderabad
05/06/2023
The Indian Express / by Express News Service
In his plea, Varavara Rao said the surgery was expensive in Mumbai and that he was entitled to free medical treatment up to Rs 2 lakh in Telangana as he is a pensioner.
The Bombay High Court on Monday directed Telugu poet and activist Varavara Rao, who is an accused in the Elgaar Parishad case, to approach a division bench of the high court with his plea to get cataract surgery done free-of-cost in Hyderabad, Telangana. Read more
by Live Law / @LiveLawIndia (June 5, 2023):
Bombay High Court hearing octogenarian accused P Varavara Rao’s plea to undergo cataract treatment in Hyderabad asks his counsel to approach the division bench as it would require modification of his bail condition.
Dalit activist Prakash Ambedkar recently told the Commission of Inquiry probing the 2018 Koregaon Bhima violence to first summon Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who was chief minister at the time of the incident. Ambedkar said before asking him to depose, the probe panel should also ask its member Sumit Mallick, who was the state chief secretary in 2018, and former Pune Rural SP Suvez Haque to depose. Read more
The BJP, which strives to trip governments in Opp-ruled states, seems to be heeding playwright’s notion of dissolving the people.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s inauguration of the new Parliament building reminded me of playwright Bertolt Brecht and his poem The Solution.
… At the Elgar Parishad, organised in Pune on December 31, 2017, activist Sudhir Dhawale began his speech thus: “What sort of a city is this? What sort of people/are you?/When injustice is done there should be a revolt in this city/And if there is no revolt, it were better that the/city should perish in fire before night falls.” The Pune Police claimed this verse proved Dhawale instigated the January 1, 2018 violence at Bhima Koregaon. He has been locked up for the last five years. Read more
The two-member commission, headed by retired judge Justice J N Patel, was formed by the state government for probing into the causes of violence in the Koregaon Bhima area on January 1, 2018.
Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry has yet again issued a “letter of request” to Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar, asking him to appear before it and submit an affidavit during the hearing in Mumbai on June 5. Read more
NIA opposes Gautam Navlakha’s plea for moving house arrest from Mumbai to Alibag
15/05/2023
The Leaflet / by Sarah Thanawala
The State opposed the change in the place of house arrest on the grounds of being “cumbersome” and creating a “security risk”. It also alleged that the plea demonstrated that Navlakha’s earlier arguments seeking house arrest on medical grounds was a farce because there is no super-speciality hospital in the vicinity of the newly proposed venue of house arrest. Senior advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan, representing Navlakha, opposed these arguments. The Bench has granted Navlakha time to search for other appropriate houses in Mumbai.
On Monday, a division Bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justices K.M. Joseph and B.V. Nagarathna, allowed journalist and human rights activist Gautam Navlakha time until August 18 to find another suitable place for house arrest in Mumbai. Read more
Supreme Court Grants Time To NIA To File Counter Affidavit Regarding Change In Location of Gautam Navlakha’s House Arrest
15/05/2023
Live Law / by LIVELAW NEWS NETWORK
The Supreme Court, on Monday, granted four weeks’ time to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to file a counter affidavit with respect to the change in location of house arrest of the human rights activist Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon case.
A Bench comprising Justice KM Joseph and Justice BV Nagarathna was considering an application filed by him seeking to shift his house arrest location in Mumbai. Read more
SC to hear activist Navlakha’s plea on Monday for shifting out from Mumbai public library under house arrest
15/05/2023
The Telegraph / by pti
The top court also directed Gautam Navlakha to deposit another Rs 8 lakh toward expenses for making available police personnel for his security
The Supreme Court is likely to hear on Monday a plea of activist Gautam Navlakha, who is under house arrest in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, that he be shifted from a public library in Mumbai to some other place.
A bench of Justices K M Joseph and B V Nagarathna had on April 28 directed the CBI to file its reply within two weeks on Navlaka’s petition seeking to be shifted from the public library to some other place in the city as the facility needs to be vacated. Read more
Thread by Amnesty India / @AIIndia (June 6, 2023): 
