Don't take Navlakha out of Delhi: High Court

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the Maharashtra Police not to take human rights activist Gautam Navlakha - arrested on terror charges - out of Delhi till Wednesday and to keep him under house arrest till further orders.

Journalist Navlakha was arrested from his residence in south Delhi's Nehru Enclave by a police team from Pune and presented before a magistrate which allowed the police to present him before a court in Pune.

However, Navlakha's counsel filed a habeas corpus seeking his whereabouts in the High Court in the afternoon. The bench sought a response from Delhi Police.

The police told the court that they had already got transit remand of the accused.

A bench headed by Justice S. Muralidhar, however, directed the police not to take Navlakha out of Delhi and keep him under arrest here till its further orders and listed the matter for further hearing on Wednesday.

The court order came after the Pune Police failed to tell the specific allegation levelled against him.

The court, however, directed Navlakha not to misuse his liberty and said he can only meet his lawyers while under house arrest.

"This is clearly an assault on liberals and a motivated act. There is no ground for detention or restriction of movement," activist's counsel Nitya Ramakrishnan and advocate Warisha Farasat said.

The counsel said Navlakha had extended all possible co-operation to the searching officers even in these circumstances.

For a second time in five months, the Pune police on Tuesday raided alleged Maoist sympathizers across the country and detained several activists.

The raids were carried out in Maharashtra, Goa, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Haryana.

The raids were described as a follow-up to a similar action on April 17 when the Pune police had swooped on over half-a-dozen Dalit activists and those involved with the Kabir Kala Manch, which organised an Elgar Conference in Pune on December 31, 2017.

The next day, on January 1, caste riots erupted in Koregaon-Bhima which left one person dead.

--IANS

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