Bhima-Koregaon activists' arrest case: Sudha Bhardwaj moves Bombay High Court seeking bail

Mumbai: Human rights activist and lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj, arrested in connection with the Elgar Parishad case, has moved the Bombay High Court to seek bail. The plea was taken up for hearing on Wednesday by Justice NW Sambre.

Bhardwaj, through her lawyer Yug Chaudhary, challenged the decision of a Pune court that had rejected her bail plea in October 2018. Chaudhary told the bench that the Pune court while denying the bail to Bhardwaj, had relied upon four letters produced as incriminating evidence by the Pune Police.

However, Chaudhary said he wanted to show to the high court that the letters could not be accepted as admissible evidence under the Indian Evidence Act. The bench is likely to hear the plea in detail on 18 February. Bhardwaj was arrested along with several other activists by the Pune Police in 2018.

She and the others were booked following an Elgar Parishad event on 31 December, 2017, which, the police alleged, triggered violent clashes the next day at Koregaon- Bhima village in Pune district of Maharashtra. According to police, the event was funded and supported by Maoists.

At the event, some activists made inflammatory speeches and provocative statements that contributed to the 1 January violence, they had said. The Pune Police also alleged that Bhardwaj played a role in mobilising party cadres and funds for the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).

The police claimed it came to the conclusion after raiding the houses of several of these activists and chancing upon some letters that revealed, among other things, a conspiracy to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi.