Mumbai: The Bombay high court has allowed Sudha Bharadwaj, an accused in the Bhima-Koregaon violence, to attend the post-funeral rites of her father, who died two days ago. The court has kept the bail hearing on August 27.

Bharadwaj has been in jail for almost a year now after the Pune police arrested her in the Elgar Parishad Bhima-Koregaon case.

Ms Bharadwaj’s lawyer Yug Chaudhary requested the high court Thursday that she be allowed to visit her home to attend the 13th day rituals of her father.            

Justice Sarang Kotwal, who is hearing Bhardwaj’s bail plea, granted the permission and directed the Maharashtra government to provide adequate police escorts in plain clothes to accompany Ms Bharadwaj.

She will leave for Bengaluru on August 17, and start her return journey on August 20.

The cost of her travel and police escorts will be borne by the state, the court said. Ms Bharad-waj had moved the high court seeking bail. She denied all charges of having connections with Maoist organisations and being part of their conspiracies.
In February, another bench of the high court reserved its verdict on her bail plea after multiple hearings, but did not pronounce verdict on the scheduled date, instead recusing itself from the case.

The bail pleas of Bharadwaj and some of her co-accused are now being heard afresh by Justice Kotwal.

According to the Pune police, the inflammatory speeches at Elgar Parishad, a conclave allegedly backed by Maoists, led to violence at the Bhima-Koregaon war memorial on January 1, 2018.

In the course of the investigation, the police allegedly found links between Bharadwaj and some other left-leaning activists with Maoists.

Recently, the Bombay high court reserved its order on a petition filed by activist Gautam Navlakha. The court, while hearing the arguments, said that even though some of the points were in Mr Navlakha’s favour, a deeper investigation needed to be conducted in the case.

Mr Navlakha had approached the court to quash the FIR lodged against him by the Pune police in the Bhima-Koregaon violence case. Mr Navlakha is among the five activists booked in the case.