The Maharashtra Police defended the arrests of five human rights activists who had been arrested in alleged connection to ‘Maoist links’ before the Supreme Court of India by saying that the investigation was based on “cogent evidence”.
The defense was in response to a plea which had been filed by Romila Thapar and four others. The police accused the activists of planning to carry out violence, planned ambush against country and security forces.
“Activists not arrested because of their dissenting opinion, there is sufficient material to dispel this impression,” the Maharashtra Police said.
Earlier, the SC had ordered that the five activists would be kept under house arrest till September 6 and said that dissent was the “safety valve” of democracy.
The plea was filed by Thapar, economists Prabhat Patnaik and Devaki Jain, sociology professor Satish Deshpandey and human rights lawyer Maja Daruwala which sought an independent probe into the arrests of the activists and their immediate release. The court is set to hear the matter on September 6.
Earlier on August 28, Pune police teams raided the houses of activists in Mumbai, Ranchi, Hyderabad, Delhi and Faridabad and arrested five in alleged connection to a Maoist plot, PTI reported.
Activist Sudha Bhardwaj from Faridabad, Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, activists Gautam Navlakha from Delhi, Arun Pereira and Venon Gonsalves from Mumbai have been detained by the police.
