SC Reprieve For Alleged Maoist Sympathisers: They Will Be Under House Detention Till Sept

DEFENDING arrests of five high profile persons for their alleged links with Maoists by the Maharashtra  Police whose arrests have been halted  by the Supreme Court of Indi , The Union Ministry for  Home  Affairs says 128 organisations suspected to be having links with Maoists were identified by the UPA government in 2012 . Supreme Court of  India  has  ordered that five prominent rights activists arrested for alleged Maoist links be kept under house arrest instead of police custody until it rules next week on a petition challenging their detention. Police, meanwhile, broke up a protest in southern India against the arrests and detained about two dozen people.MHA says those arrested by Maharashtra Police in the recent crackdown were part of these front groups of the red ultras, As the government received brickbats  from  liberal  intellectuals  and  some opposition parties for the arrest of a few rights activists for suspected Naxal links, officials came out with a list, prepared by the then UPA dispensation in 2012, of organisations “having connections with the Maoists”. The UPA government had, in December 2012, identified 128 organisations with linkages to the CPI (Maoists) and written to all state governments asking them to take action against people involved with these organisations. Seven of those Varavara Rao, Sudha Bhardwaj, Surendra Gadling, Rona Wilson, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Mahesh Raut arrested so far belong to the organisations appearing in this list,” a government official said requesting anonymity. While Rao, Bhardwaj, Ferreira and Gonsalves were arrested on Tuesday, Gadling, Wilson and Raut were arrested on June 6. Also Read: Allow dissent in democracy, else pressure cooker will burst: SC on activists’ arrest.Ferreira and Gonsalves, two of the five arrested on Tuesday, were held in 2007 too and they had spent several years in prison. Similarly, Rao has been arrested several times by the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Police in the past. The official said what is under investigation in the current case are the linkages of these individuals with the CPI (Maoist), a banned organisation operating with the devious objective of overthrowing democratic order, and the support provided by them to the CPI (Maoist). “Such individuals cannot escape responsibility, they added.The Supreme  Court on Wednesday said the five activists – Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and P Varavara Rao- arrested by the Maharashtra police in relation to Bhima-Koregaon violence be kept in ‘house arrest’ till September 6 when their case will be  resumed.“Dissent is a safety valve for democracy. If you don’t allow this safety valve, then the pressure cooker will burst. Look the people who are arrested after nine months. They are professors, lawyers and activists working for a cause,” observed the five-judge bench led by the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra. The apex court also sought the response of Maharashtra Government in the writ petition filed challenging the arrest of five activists for their alleged Maoists links from Delhi, Faridabad, Mumbai, Thane and Hyderabad..The Pune police said the activists are linked to Maoist groups and have shown “intolerance to present political system.(with inputs from The Deccan Chronicle)