Mumbai, November 19, 2022 (PPI-OT):Noted Dalit intellectual and author Anand Teltumbde was granted bail by Mumbai High Court on Friday after spending around 950 days in jail under draconian law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). A bench comprising Justices AS Gadkari and Milind Jadhav issued the verdict today after extensively hearing the application and reserving its order last week, reported bar and Bench.

The high court granted bail to Teltumbde on a surety of Rs one lakh. The court, however, stayed its order for a week so that the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the prosecuting agency in the case, can approach the Supreme Court. The Dalit scholar is presently lodged in Taloja Central Prison in Mumbai since his arrest in 2020 for his alleged role in Karegaon violence of 2018.

Teltumbde had moved the high court last year after a special court refused to grant him bail. In his plea, he had stated that he was never present at the December 31, 2017 Elgar Parishad event held in Pune city nor made any provocative speeches.

The NIA claimed that provocative and inflammatory speeches were made at the event that was allegedly backed by Communist Party of India (Maoist), which later led to violence at Koregaon village near Pune. It also stated that Anand Teltumbde was one of the main conveners of the Elgar Parishad meeting and that he was an active member of several frontal organisations of the CPI (Maoist). The case relates to the speeches delivered at the Elgar Parishad conclave held at Shaniwarwada in Pune, which the police claimed triggered violence the next day in Koregaon.

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