PUNE, Maharashtra — The Gadchiroli district police in Maharashtra has taken custody of human rights lawyer and activist Surendra Gadling in a 2016 case of Naxal violence.
Gadling, who was arrested in June last year in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence, was lodged in the Yerawada jail in Pune.
“The Gadchiroli police took him on Wednesday. He has been arrested in one Gadchiroli matter,” ACP Shivaji Pawar, the investigating officer of Elgar Parishad and Bhima Koregaon violence case, told HuffPost India.
In 2016, over 70 vehicles were burnt down around the Surjagad hills in Gadchiroli district in a Naxal attack.
Gadling’s lawyer, Barun Kumar, said that the police called Gadling’s wife and informed her about his arrest by the Gadchiroli police. The lawyer-activist will be produced before a court in Aheri town of Gadchiroli on Friday.
“They (Gadchiroli police) had given a production warrant for him in December 2018 in a case involving torching of 74 vehicles in Surjagad hills. The warrant appears to have been executed now, but I don’t know if they have taken the permission of Pune court or not. It was already expected that he will be produced before Aheri court after the execution of the production warrant. We had raised this issue in the Supreme Court as well, which asked us to submit the production warrant. Senior counsel Indira Jaisingh had argued on his behalf, saying that it is the modus operandi of the police to implicate people in one case after another,” Kumar added.
A lawyer, who was associated with Gadling before he was arrested along with other activists and lawyers in June last year, said that in 2016 the lawyer-activist was in Nagpur, busy in a case involving Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba when the Surjagad incident happened.
“Two years after the incident, you arrest a lawyer who has got nothing to do with the incident (torching of vehicles). A police officer had threatened Gadling during the hearing of Professor Saibaba case and said that he will be targeted very soon and it has happened now,” the lawyer revealed, requesting anonymity.
HuffPost India reported on Thursday that the police has found no evidence against writer Anand Teltumbde, six months after it claimed that he was a member of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).