Mumbai: Human rights activist Gautam Navlakha, accused in Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, was released from Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai on Saturday evening and will live under house arrest for a month.
He was immediately taken to a building in Navi Mumbai's Belapur-Agroli area by a police team where he would be staying. Navlakha left the prison around 6 pm, said a senior prison official. On Friday afternoon, the Supreme Court had rejected the NIA's application opposing his house arrest. It had ordered that Navlakha be placed under house arrest "without fail" within 24 hours.
The 70-year-old activist who claims to be suffering from multiple ailments, has been in jail since April 2020 in the 2017-18 case. On November 10, the Supreme Court had allowed Navlakha to be put under house arrest for a month with certain conditions and said its order should be implemented within 48 hours.
However, the NIA had moved the apex court earlier this week seeking vacation of its order for house arrest, saying Navlakha, being a charge-sheeted accused in a case involving threat to national security and integrity, does not deserve any extra leeway. On Friday, the SC, however, went ahead with its November 10 order of placing the activist under house arrest.
Also read: SC rejects NIA plea, orders Bhima Koregaon accused Gautam Navlakha's house arrest within 24 hours
The case against Navlakha relates to alleged inflammatory speeches made at the 'Elgar Parishad' conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which the police claimed triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon Bhima war memorial on the outskirts of the western Maharashtra city. According to the Pune police, people linked to banned Naxalite groups had organized the programme. The case, in which over a dozen activists and academicians have been named as accused, was later handed over to the NIA
