The Bombay High Court on Friday granted bail to Kabil Kala Manch artists Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor, who are accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon case, reported Bar and Bench.

A division bench of Justices Ajay Gadkari and Shyam Chandak allowed their bail application on the grounds of long incarceration, according to Live Law.

The case pertains to the violence that broke out near Pune on January 1, 2018, a day after a conclave called the Elgar Parishad was organised to mark the 200th anniversary of the battle of Bhima Koregaon. Kabir Kala Manch was one of the 250 Dalit and human rights organisations that had organised the conclave.

One person was killed in the violence and several others were injured.

The National Investigation Agency has alleged that the Elgar Parishad was part of a larger Maoist conspiracy to stoke caste violence, destabilise the Union government and assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Gorkhe and Gaichor were arrested in September 2020.

On Friday, the High Court was hearing their petitions against a February 2022 order of a special National Investigation Agency court in Mumbai, which denied them bail.

The NIA court had said that the material on record suggested that they hatched a “serious conspiracy”, along with members of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), to overthrow the Modi government.

The High Court directed Gorkhe and Gaichor to be released on furnishing a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh each, along with sureties of the same amount, reported Bar and Bench.

It also directed them to appear at the NIA office in Mumbai on the first Monday of every month.

The NIA has accused Gaichor of using the Elgar Parishad event to make inflammatory speeches to incite violence and “propagate Naxal activities and Maoist ideology”, reported Live Law.

It has claimed that Gorkhe used his “performances” of cultural songs and dances to propagate Maoist ideology.

Among the accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, the Bombay High Court has granted bail to Rona Wilson, Sudhir Dhawale and Sudha Bharadwaj, while the Supreme Court has granted bail to Varavara Rao on medical grounds and to Shoma Sen, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira on merits. In November, the Supreme Court also granted interim bail to Jyoti Jagtap.

One person accused in the case, Jesuit priest Stan Swamy, died in prison in 2021.

When the Supreme Court in 2023 granted bail to two people accused in the case, it noted that the primary evidence cited by the NIA – a batch of letters – was of “weak probative value or quality”. In addition, a digital forensics firm, Arsenal Consulting, concluded that false evidence had been planted on the laptops and devices of the accused persons.

Also read: How Kabir Kala Manch, the anti-caste cultural troupe, challenges the hierarchical social order