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DEVENDRA Fadnavis Hails SC Verdict On Arrest of Naxal Sympathisers

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has welcomed India’s Supreme Court’s judgement declining to interfere in the arrests of five noted activists saying the action cannot be termed as their dissent voice. The arrests have been made in connection with the   Bhima-Koregaon riots case in the Western state leading to a law and order problem. The five alleged Maoist-linked activists are Human Rights activists Rona Wilson Jacob, Surendra Gadling, Sudhir Dhawale, Prof Shoma Sen and Mahesh Raut .They were arrested by The Pune Police on June 6, in connection with the Elgaar Parishad and subsequent Bhima-Koregaon caste riots. They were allegedly involved in promoting the left wing extremists. Fadnavis, heading the BJP-Shiv Sena government in the state, said  on Friday in Mumbai that he felt vindicated after the Supreme Court has by a majority verdict has okayed the arrests made by the Pune Police on the basis of  clinching  evidence. The stand taken by the Maharashtra Government and the Pune police is approved by the country’s apex court that that the investigators had ample evidence against the arrested activists for their alleged links with Maoists.The SC has also refused to transfer the case to the a Special Investigation Team (SIT)  for  probe  The Chief Minister said: “The verdict by the Supreme Court vindicates our stand against the urban Maoists. Definitely a conspiracy against the nation has been unearthed by the police. The apex court has pointed out that it was not a political conspiracy behind the arrests (of activists with Maoist links).“The Supreme Court has also appreciated that the State Government or the Government of the day is not trying to curb dissent of voice, The apex court also says that the material evidence in the case shows that there is no mala fide action on the part of the Pune police,” Fadnavis said.Speaking  about the evidence  meticulously collected by the Pune police on the urban Maoists arrest case, the Chief Minister said: “We have all the material evidence to show that these people (arrested activists with alleged Maoist links) were conspiring against the nation that these people were also trying to vitiate relations between the communities. … They have been colluding with the organisations of the enemy nations.”Fadnavis said that the apex court had said that there appeared to be a clear nexus between the “these people and banned organizations.“These people had been plotting to assassinate the Prime Minister in collusion with the enemies of the nation. That’s why the police have taken this action (of arresting activists with Maoist links). They have enough material to convict them. As directed by the Supreme Court, we will put all the evidence against these people before the appropriate court which will grant us custody. Even otherwise, we have sufficient evidence to convict them”. Defending The Pune and Maharashtra Police for addressing press conferences to brief the brief media about the arrests,” he said :  “A lot of things were said against the police after the arrest and an atmosphere was created by pseudo, so-called neo-liberals in the media that the arrests have been made without evidence. The police had to say that the arrests were not motivated but backed by real and powerful evidence”, “We will look into the fine print of the order regarding the police press conferences. The press conference is not important but the real issue is conspiracy against the nation is. If holding the press conference was wrong, we will improve it,” Fadnavis said. On June 8, the investigators had claimed that they had recovered from the laptop of Wilson an allegedly incriminating letter, which uncovered an alleged plot by the Maoists to carry out “Rajiv Gandhi-type” assassination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On August 28, the Pune police arrested five more activists Varavara Rao, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Pereira, Sudha Bharadwaj and Gautam Navlakha for their association with the Elgaar Parishad held in Pune ahead of the January 1, 2018 Bhima-Koregaon riots and their alleged links with the Maoists. However, the Supreme Court ordered that the five arrested activists be placed under house arrest till September 6.Defending the fresh arrests of five activists with alleged Maoist links on August 28, Pune’s Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Shirish Sardeshpande had said at a news conference held on August 29 that the seized documents had revealed that the outlawed CPI (Maoist) had hatched a conspiracy to overthrow the Government established by the law.“Some of the evidence collected reveals that there appears to be nexus with the other unlawful organisations which spread violence. They have shown intolerance to the present political system and decided to target organisations, functionaries and they even were thinking of targeting the highest political functionary,” Sardeshpande had said .

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