NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will on Wednesday hear the plea against the arrest of five rights activists by Maharashtra Police in connection with Bhima-Koregaon violence. Historian Romila Thapar along with human right activists Prabhat Patnaik, Satish Deshpande, Maya Darnall have moved SC seeking the release of the arrested activists.


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The SC will hear the plea against the arrest of five activists at 3.45 pm. Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi had mentioned the matter before the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra but since the CJI court was sitting in a Constitution Bench combination, the CJI asked him to mention the plea at 3.45 pm. 


The petitioners have urged the SC to order an independent probe into arrest of the activists. They have also urged the SC to seek an explanation from Maharashtra for "sweeping round of arrest" in the case. 


Meanwhile, the Delhi HC will be hearing the plea seeking the release of rights activist Gautam Navlakha at 2:15 pm on Wednesday. The plea has termed his arrest by Maharashtra Police as illegal. The Maharashtra Police has told the Delhi HC that translated copies of the document are not yet ready and will be given to Navlakha's counsel by 12 pm. 


Maharashtra Police had on Tuesday raided the homes of prominent Left-wing activists in several states and arrested at least five of them for suspected Maoist links. The raids were carried out as part of a probe into the violence between Dalits and the upper caste Peshwas at Koregaon-Bhima village near Pune after an event called Elgar Parishad, or conclave, on December 31 last year. Security officials said two letters recovered over the past few months, indicating Maoist plans to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and Home Minister Rajnath Singh, were also a reason for the raids.


Searches were carried out at the residences of prominent Telugu poet Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, activists Vernon Gonzalves and Arun Farreira in Mumbai, trade union activist Sudha Bhardwaj in Faridabad and civil liberties activist Gautam Navalakha in Delhi. Subsequently, Rao, Bhardwaj, Farreira, Gonzalves and Navalakha were arrested under IPC Section 153 (A), which relates to promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place or birth, residence, language and committing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.


Some other sections of the IPC were also pressed against those arrested, along with Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for their "alleged naxal activities," a police official said. The premises of Father Stan Swamy, a tribal leader in Jharkhand, too were searched but he was not detained.


Soon after Navalakha's arrest, the Delhi High Court ordered police not to take him out of the national capital at least until Wednesday. The High Court was hearing a habeas corpus petition filed on behalf of Navalakha by his advocate Warisha Farasat after he was picked up from his Delhi home this afternoon by the Maharashtra Police. The Punjab and Haryana High Court also ordered that Sudha Bhardwaj be kept at her own home until Maharashtra Police obtain transit remand for her.


As per the police, the speeches made at the conclave on December 31, a day before the 200th anniversary of the historic Koregaon-Bhima battle, were one of the triggers for the violence. "While arresting them, we had seized some documents, and while scrutinising these documents the connection of these five people surfaced. Their exact role in the case is part of the investigation," said the police official.


Rao's name had figured in a letter which the Pune police claimed to have seized during searches at the premises of one of the five people arrested in June in connection with the Elgar Parishad. They were accused of having close Maoist links, according to an FIR registered then at the Vishrambaug Police Station. He was arrested from his residence at Gandhi Nagar in Hyderabad by a Pune police team, which earlier searched the residences of his two daughters.


The arrests have led to massive outrage across the country from human rights defenders.