Bhima Koregaon violence: Police seek more time to file chargesheet

The Pune Police, on Saturday sought more time to file chargesheet in connection with the recent arrests it made in the Bhima Koregaon violence case.

In a country-wide raid on Tuesday earlier this week, the police arrested five prominent activists in the case - Sudha Bhardwaj, P Varavara Rao, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, and Vernon Gonsalves. However, all of them have been kept under house arrest until September 6 as per the Supreme Court's directive.

On Friday, Tushar Damgude, whose complaint propelled the police to carry out the arrests also came out of the closet to explicate the reasons behind his actions.

"Check the background of these people. Even when the Congress-NCP was in power, these were the same people who were jailed. It's unbecoming of the opposition to make such a claim. For people arrested recently, you can check the list of organizations listed by Manmohan Singh government. P Chidambaram too once said urban Naxalism exists," he said.

In another development, arrested lawyer Surendra Gadling's wife Mina Gadling also moved the Supreme Court seeking bail for her husband and four others arrested by the Pune police in June in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence.

The police arrested Surendra Gadling, along with Mahesh Raut, Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson and Shoma Sen and sent them to judicial custody.

The bicentenary anniversary of the Bhima Koregaon battle took a violent turn on January 2 this year, when clashes erupted, killing one person and leaving several injured, including 10 policemen.