Police arrest activist Varavara Rao again

HYDERABAD: Maharashtra police on Saturday night arrested Maoist ideologue and revolutionary poet Pendyala Varavara Rao again after the duration of his house arrest ended.

The 78-year-old Rao is accused of inciting the violence in Bhima Koregaon near Pune in January this year and of involvement in a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Police plans to shift Rao to Pune after taking permission from a local court.

Tension prevailed at Rao’s apartment complex where a large number of sympathisers gathered, raising slogans against the arrest.

HYDERABAD: Maharashtra police on Saturday night arrested Maoist ideologue and revolutionary poet Pendyala Varavara Rao again after the duration of his house arrest ended. The 78-yearold Rao is accused of inciting the violence in Bhima Koregaon near Pune in January this year and of involvement in a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The arrest of Rao followed a Hyderabad high court order on Friday refusing to quash the transit remand order issued by chief metropolitan magistrate on August 28, allowing the Maharashtra police to take him into custody.

A special team of Pune police led by an officer of the rank of assistant commissioner of police, which arrived in Hyderabad on Friday, arrested Rao. They would shift him to Pune after taking permission from a local court.

Tension prevailed at his apartment complex where a large number of sympathisers and human rights activists gathered, raising slogans against what they described as an illegal arrest. “We strongly condemn the brutal repression of democratic and human rights activists. The arrest of Vara Vara Rao is highly unconstitutional and illegal,” said civil rights activist and lawyer V Raghunath.

The period of house arrest of Rao actually ended on October 26, but the Hyderabad high court extended it by three weeks on a plea that his health did not permit him to be shifted to Pune.