People who celebrated Mahatma Gandhi’s death are in power today: Swara Bhaskar

Amid the growing debate on ‘urban Naxals’ following the arrest of five activists in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence, Bollywood actress Swara Bhaskar said that those who celebrated the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi are in power at present and questioned whether they, too, should be jailed for the same.

Addressing the press at an event organised by the Indian Women's Press Corps on Saturday, the Veere Di Wedding actress said, “It is a human tendency to have low thoughts. When Gandhi was killed in this country, there were people who celebrated his death; those people are now sitting in power. Will you put all those people in jail? Obviously, the answer is no.”

Earlier this week, raids were carried out in Mumbai, Ranchi, Hyderabad, Faridabad, Delhi, and Thane, after which five activists, Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Gautam Navlakha, Gonsalves and Sudha Bhardwaj were arrested in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence which broke out in January.

Later, the police claimed to have seized items like computers, laptops, CDs, documents and books from them and claimed that they functioned like an ‘urban think tank’ for Maoists.

However, the Supreme Court directed that the five Left-wing activists arrested by the Pune Police should be kept under house arrest until the next date of hearing on September 6.