Pune : Policenama Online – A sessions court on Friday directed Pune city police to provide forensic lab reports about various evidences, to accused Surendra Gadling and Arun Ferreira.
On Thursday, police had opposed their application seeking access to FSL reports stating that it will expose secret information also.
Meanwhile, accused Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, filed applications for default bail claiming the chargesheet filed in this case in complete.
A supplementary chargesheet running into 1867 pages was filed by the Pune city police in February this year at a special UAPA court against five persons, including activist Sudha Bharadwaj and one of the most wanted Maoist leader Ganapathy in Elgar Parishad case. The first chargesheet was filed in November 2018 against 10 persons.
The supplementary chargesheet was filed before the court of special judge Kishore Vadane against Bharadwaj, Telugu poet & Maoist ideologue Varavara Rao (84), activists Arun Ferriera, Vernon Gonsalves and general secretary of CPI (Maoist) Ganapathy alias Chandrashekhar, who is one of the most wanted Maoists. They were arrested in September 2018.
The chargesheet includes evidence seized from the accused persons as well as those retrived from electronic devices seized from them.
The first charge sheet was filed against advocate Surendra Gadling, activists Rona Wilson, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut and Sudhir Dhavale. They were arrested in June 2018.
Elgaar Parishad was held at Shaniwar Wada in Pune on December 31, 2017 ahead of the 200th commemoration of the battle of Bhima Koregaon. The next day ie on January 1 when lakhs of people, mostly from Dalit community had gathered at Koregaon Bhima, there was large-scale violence in which one Maratha youth was killed while properties worth crores were damaged.
Based on the complaint from one Tushar Damgude, Vishrambaug police station had registered case against organizers of Elgaar Parishad who included Harshali Potdar, Sudhir Dhawale of Republican Panthers (RP), Mumbai and Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor, Jyoti Jagtap, Deepak Dhengle of the Pune based Kabir Kala Manch (KKM) which is accused of being frontal organization of banned CPI (Maoist).
There was another case against Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mewani and student leader Umar Khalid for allegedly giving provocative speeches during at the Elgaar Parishad.
According to police, the Parishad was organized as part of Maoist strategy to mobilize people against the elected government and spread violence.
After a thorough investigation, police arrested Rona Wilson in Delhi, lawyer Surendra Gadling in Nagpur, Sudhir Dhawle in Mumbai, Professor Shoma Sen and former Prime Minister Rural Development (PMRD) fellow Mahesh Raut in Nagpur.
Police have also booked four underground Maoist operatives Milind Teltumbde, Prakash alias Ritupam Goswami, Manglu and Deepu for allegedly planning to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
All of them have been booked for offenses under Indian Penal Code sections 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and IPC sections 505 (Statements conducing to public mischief) and 117 (Abetting commission of offense by the public) and stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).