HC grants interim bail to poet Varavara Rao in Bhima Koregaon case

Mumbai, Feb 22: Activist and poet Varavara Rao arrested in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case has been granted bail by the Bombay High Court.

He has been granted interim bail for six months by the court on medical grounds.

The court is hearing three petitions - a writ petition seeking Rao''s complete medical records and a bail plea on medical grounds filed by the poet. The third one is a writ petition filed by his wife Hemlatha alleging a breach of Rao''s fundamental rights owing to lack of medical care during his continued incarceration.

Hemlatha''s plea also seeks that Rao be let out of prison and permitted to go back to his family in Hyderabad.

Rao, arrested in June 2018, is lodged in the Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai as an undertrial.

Currently though, he is undergoing treatment in the Nanavati Hospital, where he was admitted in November last year following the HC''s intervention.

The case related to alleged inflammatory speeches made at the ''Elgar Parishad'' conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which, the police claimed, triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial located on the outskirts of the western Maharashtra city.

The police have claimed the conclave was organised by people with alleged Maoist links. Several activists and academicians have been named as accused in the case.

The case was initially probed by the Pune police and later it was handed over to the central agency.