MUMBAI, July 3 -- Three accused in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case on Thursday opposed the National Investigation Agency (NIA)'s plea seeking cancellation of their bail. They told a special court that they were unaware they had been invited together to a January event at the Mumbai Press Club, that they had merely attended it as invitees, and that bail could not be cancelled lightly in the absence of any deliberate or substantial breach of its conditions. Poet-activist Varavara Rao, activist Vernon Gonsalves and activist-lawyer Arun Ferreira filed separate replies before Special Judge Chakor S Baviskar, opposing the NIA's applications seeking cancellation of their bail. The court took the replies on record and adjourned the matter to July 10 for hearing. Activist Sudha Bharadwaj, against whom the NIA has also sought cancellation of bail, is yet to file her reply. In his reply, Rao, through Advocate R Satyanarayanan, argued that he had merely accepted an invitation to dinner and had no role in convening the January 19 gathering. He contended that there was no material to suggest that any of the accused knew the others had also been invited or had attempted to contact or communicate with one another in violation of their bail conditions. The reply challenged the NIA's allegation that the gathering was intended to propagate the ideology of the banned CPI (Maoist), describing it as an assumption "at the most", unsupported by the material collected during the inquiry. Rao pointed out that statements relied upon by the agency referred to discussions on prison conditions, and progress of cases against fellow accused in the Elgar Parishad, and did not substantiate the prosecution's allegations. Rao also argued that cancellation of bail was an "extraordinary remedy" that must be exercised "with great care and circumspection" and not in a "mechanical manner", as it directly interfered with an accused's liberty....