Monday, September 7, 2015

India: Student Activist Hem Mishra granted bail



Democracy and Class Struggle can now report he has been formally released on bail

The Nagpur Bench of the Bombay high court on Thursday granted bail to Jawaharlal Nehru University student Hem Mishra, who was arrested by the Maharashtra police in August 2013 for alleged Maoist links.

A resident of Almora in Uttarakhand, Mr. Mishra was granted bail by a single judge Bench of Justice A.S. Chandurakar on a surety of Rs. 20,000
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However, the court barred him from leaving the country and he would have to mark attendance at the Almora police station once a week.

“We hope to receive the court order by tomorrow but it might take another day to secure release of my client,” advocate Surendra Gadling, who represented Mr. Mishra in the court, told The Hindu .
Mr. Gadling was assisted by advocate Harshal Lingayat and Nihalsing Rathod. Bharati Dangre was the government pleader in the case.

Mr. Mishra, who suffers from physical disability in his left hand, was a member of Democratic Student Union in JNU and a “keen cultural activist.”

The Maharashtra police had claimed to have arrested him from the Aheri Bus station in Gadchiroli district of the State along with two other “Maoist sympathisers.”

Police had also claimed that “an embedded microchip” was recovered from the possession of Mr. Mishra after his arrest and had accused him of being a “Naxal courier.”

However, Mr. Mishra’s parents and his JNU friends maintained that he was going to Hemlakasa village to meet Dr. Prakash Amte for medical treatment and that he had no “Maoist connections.”

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