Dr. Anand Teltumbde, a noted Dalit scholar and one of the accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence case of 2018, has approached the Bombay High Court seeking permission to travel abroad for academic purposes. Dr. Teltumbde’s petition requests approval to visit the Netherlands and the United Kingdom from April 1 to May 15, where he has been invited to engage in academic activities at several prestigious universities.
The court, after hearing the plea, directed the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to respond and scheduled the next hearing for April 2. Dr. Teltumbde was granted bail on November 11, 2022, with specific conditions related to his travel within India. His current application highlights that the bail conditions did not expressly cover provisions for international travel, prompting this request for judicial clarification and the release of his passport to apply for necessary visas.
Included in the plea were invitations from notable academic institutions such as the Leiden Institute for Asia Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands, Nottingham Trent University, and the University of Oxford in the UK, among others. This marks Dr. Teltumbde’s first attempt to seek judicial permission for travel outside India since his arrest connected to the Bhima Koregaon case.
