A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court on Friday extended the judicial custody of Anand Teltumbde, an engineer and Indian Institute of Management graduate who used to teach at the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur), arrested by the agency on April 14 in connection with the Elghar Parishad case, till June 5.
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Dr. Teltumbde, former Managing Director and CEO of Petronet India Limited, a management professor with Goa Institute of Management, was remanded to judicial custody on April 25 and is currently lodged at Taloja jail.
He was kept under quarantine after an assistant sub-inspector with the NIA's office in Mumbai, where Dr. Teltumbde was kept during his custodial interrogation, had tested positive for COVID-19.
His lawyers sought the court to grant him proper medical aid as he suffered various ailments following which the court asked the prison authorities to respond to the plea and to submit a report on medical treatment given to him by May 15.
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NIA had claimed that Dr Teltumbde had links with the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) and is suspected to have received funds from the organisation. NIA has claimed that he was the convenor of an event organised on December 31, 2017 at Shaniwarwada in Pune where provocative speeches were given by activists of Kabir Kala Mach, and has also claimed that call data records reveal his presence for the programme.
Meanwhile, arguments in bail applications filed by other accused in the case — poet Varavara Rao, Prof Shoma Sen and advocate Sudha Bharadwaj — in the wake on the pandemic will be heard on May 28.