The Bombay High Court on Friday asked the police not to take any coercive action against activists Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde, both accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence case, till next week, PTI reported.

A division bench said it will hear the petitions filed by the activists urging the High Court to quash the case against them on October 26. Navlakha and Teltumbde claimed that there was no evidence against them and that they were being falsely implicated in the case.

Additional public prosecutor Aruna Kamat-Pai confirmed that Navlakha will be protected from arrest till October 26 according to an order passed by the Supreme Court. “No coercive steps [such as arrest] shall be taken till the next date of hearing,” the court said.

The Pune Police arrested Navlakha, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Sudha Bharadwaj and Varavara Rao on August 28 as part of their investigation into violence during an event in Bhima Koregaon near Pune on January 1. The police had arrested five other activists in June – Shoma Sen, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Rona Wilson and Sudhir Dhawale. While these people are currently lodged in jail, those arrested in August were placed under house arrest.

On October 1, the Delhi High Court said Navlakha’s detention was untenable by law and ended his house arrest. It also rejected the Maharashtra Police’s petition to extend his house arrest by at least two days.