Elgar Parishad case: Prima facie applicants part of serious conspiracy to create unrest in country, special court in bail rejection order of four accused

A special court under the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act that on Monday denied bail to Bhima-Koregaon case accused and cultural activists Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor and Jyoti Jagtap, has said in its detailed order that prima facie it can be gathered that the applicants along with other members of the banned organisation (CPI-Maoist) hatched a serious conspiracy to create unrest in the entire country and to overpower the government, politically.

The trio are alleged to be members of Kabir Kala Manch (KKM) too, a cultural organisation that is banned. The NIA alleged that the KKM acted as a frontal organisation of the CPI(Maoist) and that the three had taken arms training in a forest in Gadchiroli and met wanted accused, now deceased - Milind Teltumbde and planned for furthering activities of CPI(M) in urban areas.

Special judge Dinesh E. Kothalikar said in his 26-page common order for the trio, that the material placed on record prima facie denotes that they are not only members of the banned organisation, but also were carrying out activities to further the objective of the organisation which is nothing but to overthrow the democracy of the nation.

The court referred to a letter from ‘R’, to one Prakash. The NIA suspects R stands for Rona Wilson, their co-accused. The court said that the contents of the letter prima facie speaks that the CPI(M) was bent upon to end Modi-Raj. The order stated, not only this, they were also thinking to go for another incident like the death of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, by targeting the road downs of Mr. Modi. Judge Kothalikar said that if these allegations are taken into consideration in proper perspective, there will be no hesitation to prima facie conclude that there is prima facie case against the applicants.

The trio had claimed bail stating that there are no allegations against them to constitute the definition of a terrorist act and that allegations are based on surmises and conjectures. They had also contended that protest against the government cannot lead to an offence under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Published on: Thursday, February 17, 2022, 10:34 PM IST