Mumbai: A month after a magistrate’s court had busted the Gadchiroli district police’s attempt to stage a fake “Naxal surrender” and rescued a man kept in illegal confinement for over two months, the police have now moved the sessions court challenging the order.Dasharath Gawade, a 27-year-old man belonging to a tribal Gond community from Lawari village in Gadchiroli, was picked up after a “Naxal surrender” on December 15, 2017. He was kept in a confinement for 65 days and finally freed after the magistrate ordered his immediate release and concluded he was being kept illegally.However, in an appeal filed before a Gadchiroli sessions court, the superintendent of police and district collector of Gadchiroli have claimed that Gawade’s involvement in the arms movement was for a long period, and that he played a part in two attacks on the police and one murder case. Claiming that magistrate N.C. Borphalkar of the judicial magistrate first class (JMFC) court in Gadchiroli completely ignored the police’s version and evidence gathered during the investigation, the police has sought for Gawade’s immediate arrest. The appeal is expected to come up for hearing next week.The Wire had reported about how the district’s C-60 commandos (the Maharashtra police’s special anti-Naxal unit) had staged Gawade’s surrender and later kept him in the district “rehabilitation cell” for months, where he was allegedly tortured and pressurised to sign surrender papers. Gawade, however, did not give in to the police pressure, and his wife Sunita had moved the court.Sunita, in her petition filed before the magistrate’s court, had claimed that her husband was picked up from his house under the pretext of a routine inquiry and was later called a surrendered Naxal.In the challenge petition, the police have denied Gawade’s and Sunita’s claims. The police has further talked about the sensitive nature of Gadchiroli district and how the state has been taking measures to ensure that “poor villagers do not get recruited by the Naxals under the guise of better life and sometimes under threat and force”. The police have also claimed that Gawade had volunteered to surrender as he was willing to lead a regular life and wanted to return to the mainstream. “We are always willing and are ready to help villagers by initiating various welfare and development programmes from time to time in order to bring Naxal affected people/ villages into the mainstream of the nation,” the appeal reads.Under the state’s “surrender programme”, any individual who is willing to give up arms is paid Rs 4.5 lakh as rehabilitation money. This, the state claims, is paid to the individual so he can return to the “mainstream”. The police, in its appeal before the sessions court, has claimed that Rs 2.5 lakh was deposited in a newly-opened account in his name at the Gadchiroli District Cooperative Bank on January 15. They also claimed that Gawade had withdrawn Rs 4,000 from the account as soon as the money was deposited. But speaking to The Wire, Gawade claimed that he was never taken to the bank and had never signed any bank documents. He had also said this in front of the magistrate.The police had furnished a photocopied bank passbook allegedly signed by Gawade in Marathi. But Gawade informed the court that he signs in English and that the signature on the papers was forged. Gawade also stuck to his version of the story on how he was picked up against his will and confined to a room even when he had not surrendered.Borphalkar had ordered for his immediate release after the police and the collector had failed to furnish evidence. The court had observed, “It is clear that the stay and observance of Dashrath seems to be confinement. So, he deserves to be released forthwith. Hence, I pass the following order in the interest of justice.”Gawade, in an interview to The Wire, had claimed that he was brutally beaten up by the police and threatened with an encounter killing. “They would come to the cell every day and beat me. They insisted I sign blank papers. When I refused, they threatened to kill me in an encounter,” Gawade had told The Wire. He has been suffering from severe backaches, which he says began after he was hit on the spinal cord.Gawade’s was not the first surrender in Lawari village. Just days before him, another person, Kamala Gawade, was shown to have surrendered. The police, while opposing the magistrate court’s order, has claimed that Kamala in her interrogation had alleged that Gawade was part of the “Korchi Dalam” of the banned organisation Communist Party of India (Maoist) between May 2011 and November 2012. Kamala, too, had been kept in the district police’s “surrendered Naxals’ rehabilitation centre” for two months. Her family had told The Wire that they had accepted the offered Rs 4 lakh, but denied that Kamala had any connection with the armed movement.