Sudha Bhardwaj to be under house arrest at her Badarpur house as Faridabad CJM cancels earlier order on transit remand

Noted human rights lawyer Ms. Bhardwaj was arrested by the Maharashtra Police from her residence on Tuesday morning.

Human rights activist Sudha Bhardwaj (right) being produced at Faridabad Court in Haryana on Tuesday.

Noted human rights lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj was arrested by the Maharashtra Police from her Sector 39 residence here on Tuesday in a Bhima Koregaon case.

However, her transit remand was stayed till August 30 in dramatic turn of events that went on till early hours of Wednesday. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Faridabad, Ashok Kumar, granted her transit remand to the Maharashtra Police on Tuesday evening, despite the Punjab and Haryana High Court staying the transit remand for three days.

However, Ms. Bhardwaj's counsel Vrinda Grover approached Mr. Kumar around midnight in the wake of the High Court orders and made submission on the matter.

In view of the High Court order, the CJM rcalled his earlier order for transit remand in the early hours of Wednesday till August 30 and directed SHO Surajkund to keep Ms. Bharadwaj at her Badarpur house.

Ms. Bhardwaj purportedly told her lawyer that the police were taking her directly to the airport from the court after her transit remand was earlier granted.

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Earlier in the day, Ms. Bhardwaj said all those opposed to the present regime whether on the issue of tribal rights, human rights or workers rights were being rounded up in this manner.

"Everybody knows about my credentials. I am a public figure working for 30 years. I have nothing to do with the incident in the FIR," said Ms. Bhardwaj.

She alleged that her laptops, mobile phones and pen drive were seized by the police and apprehended that the police were going to play around with her data ."My email password and Twitter passwords have been taken. I don't know what are they going to do with it. It is a data on air that you cannot seal by sticking cello tape," said Ms. Bhardwaj.

She was arrested from her Charmwood Village house around 7 a.m.

"Around ten Maharashtra police personnel along with a local woman constable mounted raid at the house and took her into custody. The police were in plain clothes," said Anu, daughter of Ms. Bhardwaj.

Ms. Bhardwaj's counsel Sanjeev Choudhry had opposed the transit remand on the grounds that Ms. Bhardwaj had no criminal background, her name was not in the FIR and was a visiting law faculty. He demanded that she be granted time to appear in the concerned court in Pune.