Bhima Koregaon case: Pune Police gets 90 days extension for filing charge sheet against 4 activists

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The Pune Sessions court on Monday granted 90 days extension to Pune police for filing charge sheet against four accused Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves. 

The Pune Police had on Friday moved an application in Sessions court to seek an extension of 90 days to file charge sheet against four accused in Bhima Koregaon case. 

The last date for filing the charge sheet is November 25 while the date fixed for hearing in the court is November 26, news agency ANI reported. 

Earlier on Thursday, the Bombay High Court on Thursday extended interim protection to activists Gautam Navlakha, Anand Teltumbde and Stan Swamy.

The court has ordered an interim protection to the activists till December 14. A bench of Justices BP Dharamadhikari and Sarang Kotwal extended the interim protection and also asked the Pune police to file an affidavit of its probe in the case by December 5.

The bench's direction came after the state's counsel, additional government pleader Aruna Pai opposed a plea filed by Navlakha seeking that the FIR in the case against him be quashed. The court had slammed Pai asking her to bring the relevant materials which they want to produce before the court by December 4.

Activist Varavara Rao, who under house arrest in connection with Bhima Koregaon case, was on November 18 sent to police custody till November 26 by Pune Sessions Court.

Rao was arrested by Pune police from his residence in Hyderabad on Saturday after his house arrest ended on November 17. He was under house arrest since August for having alleged links with CBI (Maoist) in connection with Bhima Koregaon violence. 

In August, police arrested five left-wing activists, after raiding their homes in several states for suspected Maoist links over the Elgar Parishad meeting which was held a day before the violence.

The police raided the homes of the activists and lawyers from five states - Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira in Mumbai, Bharadwaj in Faridabad and Gautam Navalakha in Delhi. 

In a media briefing, the police had released details of seized letters related to five activists arrested in June in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence.

The police also claimed they have "conclusive proof" to link Left-wing activists arrested in June and this week to Maoists, saying one of them spoke of a "Rajiv Gandhi-type event to end Modi-raj".