Jailed activist Navlakha's spectacles "stolen" Family

    Mumbai, Dec 7 (PTI) The family members of activist
Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Koregaon
Bhima case, on Monday claimed his spectacles were "stolen"
from the Taloja prison where he is lodged, causing acute
discomfort to him given his extremely poor eyesight.
    They said Navlakha's spectacles were "stolen" on
November 27 and he was yet to get a new pair of glasses for
which they blamed the prison authorities.
    They claimed Navlakha is "almost blind" without the
spectacles and yet, when they sent a pair of new glasses to
him by post earlier this month, the prison authorities refused
to accept the eyewear and sent it back.
    "Presently Gautam Navlakha is in acute distress, is
unable to see things around him and consequently his blood
pressure has shot up," read a statement circulated in the
evening by Navlakha's lawyers that was signed by the
activist's wife Sahba Husain.
    The statement also had an image of the postal receipt
of the parcel containing the pair of spectacles that was sent
to the Taloja prison located in adjoining Raigad district.
    In the statement, Navlakha's family claimed though he
was in much distress following the loss of his glasses, the
activist was permitted by the prison authorities to call his
family only on November 30.
    It said the conduct of the prison authorities was
"perverse and cruel".
    Navlakha had surrendered before the National
Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the nearly three-
year-old case, on April 14, 2020.
    Between August 29 and October 1, 2018, the activist
had been kept under house arrest.
    The case pertains to the Elgar Parishad conclave held
in Maharashtra's Pune district on December 31, 2017, which,
the police alleged, was funded by Maoists.
    The speeches made by some activists at the conclave
triggered violence near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial on
outskirts of Pune city the next day, according to the police
charge sheet.
    The NIA later took over the case in which several
activists and academicians have been named as accused. PTI AYA
RSY RSY

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)