NIA arrests Delhi University professor Hany Babu in Elgar Parishad case

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested Delhi University professor Hany Babu Musaliyarveettil Tharayil in connection with the Elgar Parishad Bhima-Koregaon case.

With this the total number of arrests in the case has shot to 12.

Hany Babu (54), a resident of Gautam Buddha Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, is working as an associate professor with Department of English in Delhi University.

The nine human rights activists and civil rights defenders who were arrested in the case earlier are Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Rona Wilson, Mahesh Raut and Sudhir Dhawale (arrested in first round) and P Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira (arrested in second round).

In April this year, Dalit scholar Prof Anand Teltumde and Gautam Navlakha were arrested by the NIA.

Prof Teltumbde is the brother-in-law of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi founder Prakash Ambedkar, the grandson of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.

The 12 activists, who have been arrested, are linked to CPI (Maoist).

Hany Babu is a member of the committee formed to defend GN Saibaba, a former Delhi University professor, who is currently serving a life term in Nagpur for his links to the Communist Party of India (Maoist).

All of them were arrested in the backdrop of the 31 December, 2017 meeting at the historic Elgar Parishad Shaniwarwada in the heart of the Pune city and the subsequent 1 January, 2018 caste riots in Bhima-Koregaon in the Shirur tehsil of Pune district.

The NIA had taken over the case from Pune Police and registered a case on January 20 this year. The Pune Police had filed an FIR in 2018.

Pune Police had last September conducted searches at the residence of Babu in Noida, near Delhi, in connection with the case. Police had took away three books, laptop, phone and hard disks.

In September, Babu told DH that the searches were part of tactics of intimidation towards those who raise their voice on issues. "This is a message that if you get involved in issues, you can be arrested. Even if they don't arrest me, this itself is a punishment. All my work over the years is in my laptop. Now, I don't have access to it. I don't know whether I will get back all those in full. For an academic, what can be worse," he said.

Babu is also part of the defence committee formed to fight for another DU professor N Saibaba, who is sentenced to life imprisonment for Maoist links in March 2017 and presently lodged in Nagpur Central Jail.