Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Friday dismissed activist Anand Teltumbde’s plea seeking quashing of FIR against him in the Bhima Koregaon case. The court, however, granted him protection from arrest for three more weeks.
Last week, activist Gautam Navlakha, another accused in the case, was granted relief from arrest till January 14. Navlakha and Teltumbde had jointly moved a petition before the court, seeking quashing of the FIR.
Teltumbde, a professor of data analytics with the Goa Institute of Management, was not at his residence when the raid was conducted. According to his lawyer, the case does not stand as the police did not conduct any further searches and no attempt was made to arrest him.
The government pleader argued before the court that Teltumbde’s involvement is evident in the case and the investigations are on to establish the links and therefore his arrest is necessary.
According to the police, one of the letters recovered in the case referred to ‘Comrade Anand’ and speaks about the Maoist-funded foreign travels by him to attend conspiracy meetings. But Teltumbde’s lawyer said the activist travelled abroad only for academic conferences.
Several other activists, including Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Sudha Bharadwaj, were named in the FIR for their alleged links to Maoists and involvement in the Bhima Koregaon violence. They were put under house arrest and later taken into custody by the Pune police.
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