A Pune police team, on September 10 morning, carried out a search and seizure exercise at the residence of Hany Babu MT, an English professor with Delhi University (DU), at his Sector-78 in Noida of Uttar Pradesh, in connection with the Elgar Parishad case, reports The Times of India. "We have searched Babu’s house for verifying his role after his name surfaced during the arrests of earlier accused," Pune Police commissioner K Venkatesham said. "We have seized some hard disks from his residence. We will get them forensically analysed before taking a call on further course of action. For now, we have not arrested him," he said. Police commissioner Venkatesham said, "Babu (45) was in touch with GN Saibaba, a DU professor convicted in March 2017 by a Gadchiroli court for Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) links, and was also in contact with all earlier arrested accused.”
The Elgar Parishad held in Pune on December 31, 2017, was supported and funded by the CPI-Maoist, as part of a larger conspiracy to create social unrest, chaos and overthrow the Government. Alleged inflammatory speeches made at the Parishad contributed to the January 1, 2018, caste clashes at Koregaon Bhima near Pune, the Police claimed. Acting on a FIR lodged with the Vishrambaug Police on January 8, 2018, Police carried out simultaneous raids in Pune, Mumbai and other places on April 17, 2018. Further, during raids on June 6, 2018, the Police arrested activists Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen and Mahesh Raut (all from Nagpur), Sudhir Dhawale (from Mumbai) and Rona Wilson (from New Delhi) for their alleged Maoist links and role in various unlawful activities. Gadling, also a lawyer, had represented Saibaba in the Gadchiroli case. In another raid on August 28, the police arrested veteran author-poet P Varavara Rao (from Hyderabad), lawyers Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves (from Thane and Mumbai, respectively) and Sudha Bharadwaj (from Faridabad) for their alleged Maoist links. All nine accused are lodged in Pune’s Yerawada central jail under judicial custody and the Police have so far filed two chargesheets in relation to the case which is now at a pre-trial stage.