Seven activists of the Telangana Development Forum (TDF) who were arrested in December last year in Chattisgarh were granted bail by the Chattisgarh High Court on Friday.
They were likely to be released on Saturday on completion of formalities like furnishing sureties and other documents, Telangana Civil Liberties Committee vice-president V. Raghunath said.
A practising lawyer at Hyderabad High Court, Mr. Raghunath had earlier moved bail petition for the seven arrested TDF activists in Dantewada distrct court.
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But the bail petition was dismissed then.
The arrested TDF activists — D. Prabhakar, Ch. Prabhakar, B. Ravindranath, B. Durga Prasad, Nazir, Raghavendra and Laxmaiah — were members of a fact-finding committee probing alleged encounters in Chattisgarh and death of persons belonging to Scheduled Tribes there.
They were detained on the borders of Chattisgarh and Telangana on December 26, 2016.
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“Actually, Telangana police detained these seven persons but handed over them to their Chattisgarh counterparts,” the lawyer said.
Since then, bail petitions had been moved at different courts. Finally, the High Court at Bilaspur granted bail to them.
Even as the arrested persons were in the prison, trial of the case had begun.
A case under Chattisgarh Special Public Security Act was registered against them.
The accused were to appear before the court on July 5 for the trial.