It was War and Peace in Junglemahal not Leo Tolstoy's

It was the 'War and Peace in Junglemahal' not the classic of legendary Russian writers Leo Tolstoy.

The reference attributed to the Bombay High Court and Leo Tolstoy's 1869 classic War and Peace - while hearing of the bail petition of civil rights activist and human rights defender Vernon Gonsalves - had led to a national furore with comments on the social media.

Gonsalves is one of those arrested by the Pune police in connection with the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case.

"... 'War and Peace' is about a war in another country. Why did you (Gonsalves) keep objectionable material such as books and CDs at home? You will have to explain this to the court," Justice Sarang Kotwal had asked on Wednesday.

As the issue compounded, Gonsalves's counsel Yug Chaudhary on Thursday said that it was wrongly reported. According to him, the book that is referred to in the panchanama is 'War and Peace in Junglemahal: People, tate and Maoists' by Biswajit Roy and not 'War and Peace' of Leo Tolstoy.

The judge said that he was aware that Leo Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' is a classic and he did not mean to suggest that all books seized by Pune police in the case was incriminating.

Gonsalves was arrested on August 2018, for alleged links with Maoists, and booked under sections of Indian Penal Code and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. His bail plea had been rejected earlier by Pune Sessions Court following which he had moved the Bombay High Court.