Bhima Koregaon case: Activists leaked security inputs to wanted Maoists, says supplementary charge sheet

Pune (Maharashtra) Feb 21(ANI): Hyderabad based poet Varavara Rao along with Nagpur activist and lawyer Surendra Gadling provided security-related information to wanted Maoists, alleged a supplementary charge sheet filed by the Pune Police on Thursday in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case.
"Varavara Rao along with other accused Surendra Gadling have time and again provided security personnel related information to wanted Maoists and on the basis of that only Maoists have attacked Army personnel in different attacks," read the charge sheet.
The 1,837-page charge sheet was filed against four accused Sudha Bharadwaj, Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and a wanted accused Ganapathy, who used to be the former general secretary of banned organisation CPI(Maoist).
"All the accused were in contact with several wanted Maoists and were helping them to complete their targets. Varvara Rao is responsible for collecting and distributing funds for CPI(M)," read the charge sheet further.
It alleged that Sudha Bhardwaj, Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves were responsible for the recruitment of members for the Maoist movement. "They all were also actively involved in promoting the ideology of CPI(M) and are also active members of the organisation," alleged the charge sheet.
During the investigation, it was found that IAPL (Indian Association For People's Lawyers) is the frontal organisation of CPI(M) and it works on its direction.
It was further added that Sudha Bhardwaj, was one of the chief of Persecuted Prisoners Solidarity Committee (PPSC), another frontal organisation of the banned organisation CPI(M).
The charge sheet added, "All the accused were working underground for CPI(M) and were coordinating with its frontal organisation such as IAPL, PPSC, Kabir Kala Manch, MGMC, etc."
In the initial charge sheet filed in November last year, the police alleged that the "entire campaigning for Elgaar Parishad and speeches delivered at Elgaar Parishad aggravated the Bhima Koregaon violence."
It also stated that a letter recovered from one of the arrested accused revealed that a conspiracy was being hatched to carry out a Rajiv Gandhi like assassination on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Violence had erupted during the 200th-anniversary celebrations of the Bhima-Koregaon battle in January last year, leaving one dead and several others injured. (ANI)