Bail plea of Gonsalves, Ferreira to be heard on Oct 10

The bail pleas of human rights activists and civil liberties defenders Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira would be heard by a Pune court on 10 October.

Gonsalves, a resident of Mumbai and Ferreira, who stays in the neighbouring Thane district, are currently under house arrest - following the orders of the Supreme Court.

Advocates Rahul Deshmukh and Siddharth Patil, who represents Gonsalves and Ferreira, respectively, has filed separate bail applications in the Pune sessions court.

Additional Sessions Judge K D Vadane would hear the two bail applications on 10 October.

Gonsalves and Ferreira are among the five human rights activists and civil liberties defenders who had been accused of links with banned CPI (Maoist) and their role in the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case.

The three others noted revolutionary poet and writer P Varavara Rao, Gautam Navlakha and Sudha Bharadwaj.

Rao's advocate too is expected to file bail plea. It is to be noted here that Navlakha was freed from house arrest by the Delhi High Court last Monday.

Gonsalves and Ferreira has sought bail on the grounds that they have been under house arrest for over a month now and police has not found anything incriminating. Besides, in its order, the Supreme Court, it has enabled the five suspects to seek remedies as per law.