Maharashtra Police on Wednesday filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court (SC) on last week's arrest of five rights activists alleging they weren't arrested because of their dissenting opinion against the government but because evidence suggested they are allegedly active members of the banned CPI (Maoist) organisation. Last week on Tuesday, the state police arrested activists Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and P Varavara Rao, charging them under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. A day later, the Supreme Court ordered Maharashtra police to keep the arrested activists and lawyers confined to their “own houses” until September 6 and not take them to jail. The SC also warned against muzzling dissent in a democracy. Seeking custody for interrogation of the five rights activists, the police on Wednesday told the SC that house arrest merely restricts the physical movement of the accused and that they can always ensure not only destruction of evidence elsewhere, but also alert other potential accused while sitting at home. Maharashtra police alleged in the affidavit to the SC on Wednesday that the five activists are allegedly involved in planning and preparing for violence and destruction of property resulting in chaos in society as per an agenda prepared by the CPI (Maoist), an organisation banned since 2009. The police alleged that substantial damage must (already) have been done by the accused while under house arrest and that would be prejudicial to further investigating their allegedly serious offences. Therefore, they said, they shouldn't merely be under house arrest. The state police further alleged that material found from computers, laptops, pen drives and memory cards of the accused persons clearly implicated them as active members of CPI (Maoist) and clearly reflected a design to commit criminal offences having the potential of destabilizing society. The police requested the SC to go through the evidence submitted in a sealed cover and said it would become amply clear that they are found to be committing and were planning and preparing for a series of criminal offences in connivance and conspiracy with other persons. Police said evidence showed that the five arrested persons were encouraging cadres to go underground in a ‘struggle area’, mobilize and distributing money, facilitating selection and purchase of arms and ways of smuggling such arms into India for its onward distribution among the cadres.