Mumbai: After spending around 10 days in the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) custody, Kabir Kala Manch members Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor and Jyoti Jagtap have been remanded in judicial custody by a special court on Saturday till 3 October.
While Gorkhe and Gaichor had been arrested by the central agency on 7 September, Jyoti Jagtap who is Gaichor’s partner, was arrested the following day. While initially the court had granted their custody to the NIA till 11 September, it was then extended up to 19 September.
Gorkhe and Gaichor on Saturday made a plea before the special NIA court seeking to allow them to carry books inside prison. Their advocate Nihalsing Rathod told special judge DE Kothalikar that the accused are activists and have a keen interest in reading and writing. He assured the court that the books do not contain any incriminating material.
They were allowed to carry 14 books mentioned in their plea which the court mentioned in its order - these included books by Babasaheb Ambedkar, Amrita Pritam and Satyajit Ray.
The court said that considering the reasons stated in the application, applicants are allowed to carry books…after the prison authority is satisfied that the books do not contain incriminating material.
The court also allowed Gorkhe to carry some writing material - two A4 size notebooks, full scape papers, 20 envelopes and a writing pad.
Judge Kothalikar, however, said, “Needless to say that if the prison authority finds that the books contain incriminating material it shall not allow the accused to bring the same in prison.”
