Posts – Page 98 – free them all

Vernon Gonsalves, Varavara Rao & Arun Ferreira File Review Application, Seek Default Bail

09/02/2022 Asha

Live Law / by Sharmeen Hakim

The Bombay High Court has directed the National Investigation Agency to respond to a review application filed by three accused in the Bhima Koregaon – Elgar Parishad Case seeking bail and factual corrections in the order refusing them default bail.
A division bench led by Justice SS Shinde gave the agency two weeks to file their reply and posted the application filed by Vernon Gonsalves, Varavara and Arun Ferreira thereafter.
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Podcast: Disha Wadekar talks about Ambedkarite history in Pune City, Bhima Koregaon in 2018 …

09/02/2022 Asha

By Anurag Minus Verma Podcast

en | 1h39min | 2022
Listen to the podcast

Anurag Minus Verma Podcast in Conversation with Disha Wadekar (#44 Disha Wadekar)
Disha is an advocate practicing in the Supreme Court. She has also headed a legal resource centre and is co-founder of CEDE.

Topics Discussed in the podcast:
– Rarely discussed Ambedkarite history about Pune City.
– What happened at the Bhim Koregaon in 2018.
– Vimukta identity and criminal act.
– Delta Meghwal rape case and struggle of the family for justice
– Community for the Eradication of Discrimination in Education and Employment (CEDE), a network of lawyers, law firms, judges, and other organizations and individuals, who are committed to reforming the Indian legal profession.

Bhima Koregaon Commission: Startling Revelations!

09/02/2022 Asha

Bhima Koregaon Commission: Startling Revelations!

08/02/2022

Rediff.com / by Jyoti Punwani

Maharashtra’s then home minister didn’t ever discuss the proceedings of the Elgar Parishad held on December 31, 2017, at Pune’s historic Shaniwarwada, with Pune’s police commissioner.
Nor did he discuss the violence that took place the following day at Bhima Koregaon with her.
In fact, no minister either at the Centre or state contacted Pune’s police commissioner over these two incidents.
This startling fact came to light in Rashmi Shukla’s testimony before the Bhima Koregaon Commission of Inquiry last week.
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NCP’s Sharad Pawar, IPS Suvez Haque summoned by Bhima Koregaon Inquiry Commission

09/02/2022

Hindustan Times / by Shalaka Shinde

The Bhima Koregaon Inquiry Commission will begin its next round of hearings on February 21 in Mumbai, with five people, including Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar, and former Pune rural police superintendent Suvez Haque, scheduled to appear.
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Koregaon Bhima inquiry commission summons Sharad Pawar to depose before it as witness

10/02/2022

The Indian Express / by Chandan Haygunde

During an interaction with the media following the January 1 violence, Pawar had raised suspicion about the role of Hindutva groups in the riots.
The Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry Wednesday summoned Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar to depose as a witness on February 23 and 24.
Read more

Also read:
● Bhima Koregaon: Is Milind Ekbote Being Protected? (Rediff.com / Feb 2022)
● Sambhaji Bhide & Milind Ekbote instigated the Bhima Koregaon Violence,” an accused deposes as witness before Inquiry Commission (LawBeat / Oct 2021)

Seized Devices Of Seven Accused To Be Submitted To Pegasus Committee

08/02/2022 Asha

Court permits NIA to submit seized mobile phones to the SC-appointed Committee probing Pegasus allegations

08/02/2022

The Leaflet / by The Leaflet

A special National Investigation Agency [NIA] Court in Mumbai, on Tuesday, allowed the application filed by the anti-terror agency to submit the seized mobile phones of the seven accused in the Bhima Koregaon case to the Supreme Court-appointed Techincal Committee which is probing the Pegasus spyware scandal.
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Seized Mobile Devices Of Seven Accused To Be Submitted To Pegasus Committee To Check For Possible Snooping

08/02/2022

Live Law / by Sharmee Hakim

Mobile devices of the seven accused in the Bhima Koregaon – Elgar Parishad Case will be submitted to the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Committee (TC) probing allegations of snooping using Pegasus spyware, after the Special Court allowed the National Investigation Agency’s plea.
Read more

Also read:
● Elgar Parishad Accused, Their Lawyers Write to SC’s Committee on Pegasus Spyware Targeting (The Wire / Jan 2022)
● Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line (The Wire / July 2021)

In Covid-hit India, where are the women? In Byculla Women’s Jail, awaiting trial, awaiting death

08/02/2022 Asha

Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Women in and Beyond the Global / by Dan Moshenberg

When Covid hit India, the reports, and for some expectation, were that the State would consider pandemic measures, such as the need for social distancing, and would reduce the incarcerated populations. To no one’s great surprise, that did not happen generally, and in particular it did not happen in women’s jails and prisons. For example, the state of Maharashtra has 60 central and district jails. Of them, one, Byculla Women’s Jail, is the only one dedicated for women and children, but that doesn’t mean the conditions are in any way better. Byculla Women’s Jail has always been an overcrowded hellhole for women and children.
Read more

Also read:
● Sudha Bharadwaj: My greatest strength were prison inmates (Rediff.com / Feb 2022)
● Another COVID-19 Outbreak in Byculla Prison Highlights Lessons That Haven’t Been Learnt (The Wire / Sep 2021)
● Coronavirus | 38 inmates of Byculla jail test positive (The Hindu / April 2021)

Opposition MPs urge Narendra Modi to free jailed activist / Full statement

06/02/2022 Asha

MPs write to PM, asking for immediate release of all arrested in Bhima Koregaon case

01/02/2022

By CPI (M)

click to enlarge

Bhima Koregaon case: Opposition MPs urge Narendra Modi to free jailed activists

07/02/2022

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The MPs alleged that evidence was planted against the accused persons.
Members of several Opposition parties have written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking immediate release of academicians, lawyers and activists detained in the Bhima Koregaon case.
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Grant Bail to Activists Arrested in Elgar Parishad Case, MPs Say In Letter to Modi

07/02/2022

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

The letter, signed by 20 MPs, expresses “deep concern at the media and cyber-forensic expert reports indicating that Indian citizens have been attacked with illegal cyber weapons”
Read more

Also read:
● Arsenal Report No. 4 Confirms Pegasus Attack on IPhone of Rona Wilson, Key BK Accused (PUCL / Dec 2021)

Koregaon Bhima panel to call Mumbai police JCP to depose as witness / Panel visits locations seen in footage of violence

05/02/2022 Asha

Inquiry panel visits locations seen in footage of violence

06/02/2022

The Indian Express / by Chandan Haygunde

The two-member commission, headed by retired High Court Justice J N Patel and comprising former chief secretary Sumit Malik, is probing factors that led to the Koregaon Bhima violence of January 1, 2018, in which one person died and several others were injured.
Members of the Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry on Saturday visited the Jaystambh at Perne village along with various sites in Vadhu Budruk and Koregaon Bhima in Pune district.
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Koregaon Bhima panel to call Mumbai police JCP to depose as witness

05/02/2022

The Indian Express / by Chandan Haygunde

Nangare Patil was the special inspector general, Kolhapur Range, at the time of the incident
Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry will call IPS officer Vishwas Nangare Patil to depose as a witness in the case, the panel’s lawyer has said….
Lawyers B G Bansode, Kiran Channe and Rahul Makhare submitted an application before the commission seeking a probe into an audio clip, which purportedly dates back to January 1, 2018. The lawyers claim it was a mobile phone conversation between a police officer and a Shiv Sena office bearer held in a traffic jam while going to Pune from Aurangabad.
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Gave up US citizenship because I wanted to work in India: Sudha Bharadwaj (video)

05/02/2022 Asha

Bar & Bench / by Neha Joshi

The first person to get bail in the Bhima Koregaon case, Sudha Bharadwaj talks about life in prison, the dire need for better legal aid for prisoners and more.
en | 24:33min | 2022
Watch video

Bombay HC extends Varavara Rao’s bail till February 28

04/02/2022 Asha

VV Rao, Feb 2021, leaving hospital

The Indian Express / by Express News Service

The Bombay High Court on Friday extended till February 28 the time allotted to Elgaar Parishad case accused P Varavara Rao to return to jail.
The octogenarian had been granted medical bail for six months on February 22, last year, and was later allowed to extend it till February 5, 2022.
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‘The State snatched away my time with my daughter’ / ‘My greatest strength were prison inmates’

04/02/2022 Asha

Part III: ‘The State snatched away my time with my daughter’

04/02/2022

Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhatkar

‘It’s little things like these – sharing medicines, consoling each other after a mulaqat (meeting) or a tearful phone conversation with your loved ones or when we would return, dejected, when our bails were rejected – that made our time in jail bearable.’
Creativity, says Sudha Bharadwaj, is a vital lifeline for those who find their freedom taken away for crimes they may, or may not, have committed.
Survival as a prisoner during the last three years has been difficult, both emotionally and physically, but her brilliant smile makes light of it.
There were times however, she tells Rediff.com Senior Contributor Neeta Kolhatkar, when she too felt devastated.
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Part IV: ‘It is my love for the people of this country’

04/02/2022

Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhatkar

‘I can’t help it if people don’t love the minorities, the Dalits and Adivasis; they are as much of this country as any other Indian.’
‘If I love them, it does not mean I do not love my country.’
‘It is ironic and funny that they have laid such severe anti-national charges against me.’
Good memories. And bad.
Difficult moments. And memorable ones.
Trade union leader, activist and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj has gathered them all in her challenging walk through Life.
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Part II: ‘My greatest strength were prison inmates’

03/02/2022

Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhatkar

‘You are with each other 24×7, so how can you ignore someone crying next to you?’
‘How can you not share a piece of chicken with someone who is sitting next to you and watching you eat it?’
‘Of course, you will share.’
‘And you become friends with the kind of people you never thought you’d even know.’
In a conversation with Rediff.com Senior Contributor Neeta Kolhatkar, Sudha Bharadwaj explains how she kept her spirits up.
Read more

Also read:
● Part I: ‘I was imprisoned in the phansi yard’ (Rediff.com / Feb 2022)