On Thursday, Sharmila was released from a state hospital in India's northeastern state of Manipur after a court found no evidence to support earlier charges filed by state prosecutors over her alleged attempt to commit suicide by refusing food.
However, she was quickly rearrested on Friday on the same charges, in line with section 309 of the Indian Penal Code.
"She has been arrested for the same crime but it is a different case. For the last case she was released by the court and we arrested her under a new case," Superintendent of Police Jhaljit said, according to the country's leading English-language newspaper, the Times of India.
Police are currently keeping a watchful eye on Sharmila, who is now in a government hospital and is being force fed through the nose.
In November 2000, Sharmila started her hunger strike to protest the killing of 10 people at a bus stop near her home in Manipur.
Rights activists pointed the finger at the army, but no arrests have been made in connection with the killings.
Sharmila has repeatedly called for India to scrap the so-called Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which allows security forces operating in rebellious areas to shoot and kill people on the mere suspicion that they committed crimes.
The act currently remains in force in parts of northeast India and the predominantly Muslim state of Kashmir.
Sharmila has been arrested more than once, only to be re-arrested following her release on the charge of attempting to commit suicide.
In August 2014, a Manipur court ordered Sharmila's release, saying that her hunger strike was a "political demand through lawful means", according to the Times of India.
Shortly afterwards, she was rearrested over an alleged attempt to take her own life.
