Delhi Police provided logistical support to Pune Police in arresting Navalakha

Delhi Police provided logistical support to their Pune counterparts during the raids to arrest civil liberties activist Gautam Navalakha here today, a senior police officer said.

The officer said Pune Police had sent a written request to Delhi Police last night, seeking help in conducting the raids.

"We provided our police personnel to accompany their team. They just kept telling us where they planned to conduct the raids and our team accompanied them," the officer said.

Sources said Pune Police had requested their Delhi counterparts to maintain secrecy about the raids.

A 10-member team of Delhi Police's Special Cell accompanied the Pune Police team to a residence in Greater Kailash 1, but Navalakha was not found there, the sources said.

His brother told the team that Navalakha was at Nehru Enclave. The team then headed there and picked him up.

He was taken to a city court for taking transit remand and from the court, he was taken to the Special Cell office in Lodhi Colony. He was kept there until the Delhi High Court order came.

The court had ordered officials to not take Navalakha out of the national capital till it hears the matter tomorrow morning.

A bench of justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel said Navalakha will remain at his residence under police guard and will be allowed to meet only his lawyers.

He was then escorted to Nehru Enclave from the Special Cell office.

"The Delhi Police Special Cell just provided logistical support since we were requested for it. Our involvement was just in providing the personnel and we were not involved in the investigation process," said the officer.

Left-wing activists, including Varavara Rao and Sudha Bhardwaj, were also arrested today as Maharashtra police carried out searches at multiple locations in several states, including Delhi, on suspicion of them having Maoist links.

The raids were carried out as part of a probe into the violence at Maharashtra's Koregaon-Bhima village, triggered by an event called 'Elgar Parishad' (conclave) held in Pune on December 31 last year.