Charge sheet against Rao, 4 others

PUNE: The Pune police on Thursday filed a supplementary charge sheet against activists Sudha Bharadwaj, Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and top leader of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), Ganapathy, in connection with the 2018 Bhima-koregaon case, a senior officer said.

The police alleged the activists, along with some “active members” of the CPI (Maoist) had raised inflammatory slogans and engaged in certain other “allied activities, with the intention to conspire, incite and abet the commission of terrorist acts and other unlawful activities by using violent means,” leading to the Bhima-koregaon violence on January 1 last year.

“Today, we have submitted a supplementary charge sheet against five persons accused in Elgar case. The charge sheet comprises a large number of electronic evidence, which investigating team retrieved from the electronic devices, seized from the activists during our investigation,” said Shivaji Bodkhe, joint commissioner of police, Pune. According to the police, Ganapathy was made accused in the Bhima Koregaon case around eight days ago. The supplementary charge sheet alleged that Varavara Rao along with Ganapathy and other accused actively participated to achieve the goals of CPI (Maoist). The 1,837-page chargesheet was submitted to a court of additional sessions judge (special Judge) Kishor Vadane.