The Chhattisgarh High Court on Thursday asked Podiyam Panda, a Communist Party of India leader and the former sarpanch of Bastar’s Chintagufa village, to be present before it on Monday. Panda was reportedly picked up by the state police on May 3 for his alleged involvement in Maoist activities, The Wire reported.

The High Court was responding to a habeas corpus petition filed before it by Panda’s wife, Podiyam Muiye, on May 12. Muiye has accused police of neither giving her access to her husband, nor disclosing his whereabouts.

The High Court said Panda would be allowed to go home straight from the court premises if he expressed a desire to do so, a representative of the Bastar Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti, an activist organisation that helped Muiye file the petition, was quoted as saying by The Wire.

Meanwhile, Chhattisgarh Police on Thursday held a press conference in Sukma and said Panda was among the Maoists who had surrendered earlier this month. Police claimed that he had been involved in a number of cases of Left-Wing Extremism, including the gunning down of 76 CRPF jawans in Bastar in 2010.

Muiye, however, denied that her husband surrendered and said he had been picked up instead. Locals, too, claimed to have seen police taking Panda along with them by force and even beating him while doing so. In a press conference on Wednesday, Muiye said Chhattisgarh Police had picked up Panda, kept him in an undisclosed location for 10 days, tortured him and made him sign some papers, The Times of India reported. She also accused police of pressuring her to withdraw the petition.