Human rights defenders Rona Wilson and Sudhir Dhawale walked out of Taloja Central Jail in Mumbai on Friday, two weeks after they were granted bail in the Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case, in which they and other human rights defenders were charged under the draconian UAPA. They were released at 1 PM, an activist told Maktoob.
Both Wilson and Dhawale were arrested on June 18, 2018, and have been languishing in jail since then. Wilson and Dhawale are among 16 activists accused of conspiracy behind the violence that happened in connection with an Elgar Parishad event to mark the 200th anniversary of the Bhima Koregaon battle on 1 January 2018. Of the 16 persons arrested in relation to the Bhima Koregaon violence, only seven have received bail so far while one person—renowned rights activist Stan Swamy—died in custody.
Wilson is a member of the Committee for Release of Political Prisoners and a known prisoner rights activist. After the arrest, police claimed that after searching Wilson’s laptop, they found a letter Wilson had allegedly written to a Maoist militant urging the assassination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In February 2021, a report from American digital forensics firm Arsenal Consulting concluded that a hacker used malware to plant incriminating letters onto Wilson’s computer. In 2022, security researchers in the United States found a provable connection between the Pune police and a hacking campaign against Wilson, Varavara Rao, and Hany Babu.
Dhawale is a writer and one of the organizers of the Elgar Parishad event.
