Delhi University professor and noted academic Dr. Hany Babu, who is one of the UAPA prisoners in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case, completed five years of incarceration on Monday, 28 July, 2025.
On 28 July, 2020, the National Investigation Agency arrested Babu, an anti-caste activist and a staunch proponent of social justice.
Babu was charged alongside several other prominent Dalit and Adivasi rights activists, whom the authorities accused of inciting caste-based violence through speeches on December 31, 2017, that resulted in violent clashes the next day in Bhima Koregaon and neighboring villages in Maharashtra state. Authorities also accused them of having ties to banned Maoist groups. Babu was charged under various sections of the Penal Code and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
Babu is currently at Taloja Central Jail, Navi Mumbai.
Earlier, in 2021, his family and lawyers had accused authorities of denying him medical treatment despite his complaints of an acute eye infection, pain and gradual loss of vision.
Campaign Against State Repression, a collective of over three dozen organisations, on Monday demanded the immediate release of Hany Babu, whom they described as “wrongfully” incarcerated.
“It is really horrific that a university professor is languishing in jail for so many years without a trail, without having done any specific crime even according to the charge sheet and based only on the documents found in his computer, which was taken away in a raid by the police before his arrest without following any procedures,” Jenny Rowena, wife of Hany Babu, said to Maktoob last year.
“This shows that such a thing can happen to anyone who works for the larger social good and will not tow the government line. This needs to be viewed seriously and condemned,” said Rowena who is also a professor at Delhi University.
On 16 July, Supreme Court granted liberty to Babu to approach either the trial court or the high court to seek bail in the case.
The top court also granted him permission to seek revival of his earlier special leave petition (SLP) filed in the SC which was withdrawn.
A bench comprising Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice PB Varale dismissed Babu’s miscellaneous application seeking a clarification that his earlier withdrawal of the SLP did not prevent the high court from hearing his bail matter.
Babu had withdrawn his bail plea before the SC on May 3 last year in the case as he decided to move the Bombay high court, which granted bail to five other human rights activists in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case.
So far, the Bombay high court has granted bail to Rona Wilson, and activists Sudhir Dhawale and Sudha Bharadwaj, while the Supreme Court has granted bail to P. Varavara Rao on medical grounds, and Shoma Sen, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira on merits.
