Bhima Koregaon case: Sudha Bharadwaj should be given 14-day custody, says public prosecutor Ujwala Pawar

Image Courtesy: PTI

Public prosecutor Ujwala Pawar on Saturday demanded a 14-day custody for activist Sudha Bharadwaj, who was under house arrest for her alleged link to Maoists. 

The application submitted for Bharadwaj mentions that "the applicant must be provided with condition of incarceration, bathing & toilet facilities (in police custody) which are on par with those that have been promised to Vijay Mallya."

Pawar said that Bharadwaj is an active member of CPI(Maoist) so the activities she has done or has been doing for the banned organisation need to be investigated, news agency ANI reported. 

Bharadwaj is likely to be produced in the court later in the day on Saturday. She had earlier filed a bail plea in Pune Session court which was later rejected.

Two left-wing activists Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves were on Friday arrested after the local court rejected their bail plea.

Ferriera, Gonsalves and Bharadwaj had filed bail plea in a special court in Pune.

Earlier on Thursday, Hyderabad High Court had extended the house arrest for activist Varavara Rao for three weeks.

During the investigations into the Koregaon-Bhima riots, the Pune Police had raided and arrested five accused including Bharadwaj, Gonsalves, Ferreira, Gautam Navlakha (now released) and P. Varavara Rao (currently in house arrest in Hyderabad).

Earlier in June, the Pune Police had nabbed activists Rona Wilson, Sudhir Dhawale, Shoma Sen, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut and Rana Jacob in the Koregaon-Bhima case.

Besides the Koregaon-Bhima violence, the police claimed that they harboured links with Maoist terror groups, were allegedly planning to carry out high-level political assassinations in a Rajiv Gandhi-style operation and incite disturbances in the country to topple the government.