Mumbai, February 2: A day after his anticipatory bail application was rejected, Dalit scholar Anand Teltumbde was arrested by the Pune Police on Saturday in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence case. Anand Teltumbde, who was arrested from Mumbai, is accused of having links with Maoist groups. A local court on Friday rejected Teltumbde's anticipatory bail application.

"In my view, there is sufficient material collected by the investigating officer to show the involvement of the present accused in the alleged commission of the offence," additional sessions judge Kishor Vadane said. The investigation was at a crucial stage and custodial interrogation of the accused was necessary, the court held. The prosecution alleged that Teltumbde was involved in Maoist activities.

Prosecutor Ujjwala Pawar had argued that some of the correspondence seized by police revealed that the leaders of the banned CPI (Maoist) comrade Prakash, Milind (Teltumbde), Surendra Gadling, Rona Wilson, Shoma Sen and Anand Teltumbde were in contact with each other. “It establishes a larger conspiracy,” she had said.

Defence lawyer Rohan Nahar contended that there was no evidence to show that “comrade Anand” in the alleged correspondence, to which the prosecution had referred, was Teltumbde. Teltumbde appealed for anticipatory bail after the Supreme Court dismissed his plea seeking quashing of an FIR registered against him last month.

One person died and several were injured in clashes that erupted during the 200th-anniversary celebrations of Bhima-Koregaon battle on January 1 last year. According to Pune Police, Maoists had supported the Elgar Parishad conclave held here on December 31, 2017, and the inflammatory speeches there led to violent clashes at the Koregaon Bhima the next day.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 02, 2019 08:31 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).