Bhima Koregaon Violence: Four Different Theories, but No Justice in Sight https://thewire.in/rights/bhima-koregaon-violence-four-different-theories-but-no-justice-in-sight
From the Reliance Infrastructure workers’ arrest to the Naxalite angle, the Bhima Koregaon violence case is mired in multiple theories.
The real case?
On December 29, 2017, three days prior to the violence that broke out at Bhima Koregaon village, Sushma Ohol, an ambedkarite resident of Vadhu Budruk village, near Bhima Koregaon, had registered a case at Shikrapur police station. Ohol accused Milind Ekbote, a Pune-based Brahmin Hindutva leader and also the founder of the Dharmaveer Sambhaji Maharaj Smruti Samiti, as well as 49 others from Vadhu Budruk village of casteist violence in the village.
On Jan 2 2018 , Anita Sawle named Ekbote and Shiv Pratishthan Hindustan leader Manohar Kulkarni alias Sambhaji Bhide as the “masterminds” of the attack at Bhima Koregaon. Her complaint had led to the arrest of Ekbote following cancellation of his pre-arrest bail in the Supreme Court. Bhide, however, was never even called for questioning, leave alone being arrested in the case.
In the Bhima Koregaon violence, several Dalit Bahujans had testified of having seen a large mob carrying saffron flags ransacking their vehicles and attacking them. Stones were stored on the terrace of several buildings and thrown at the gathering. Many travel vehicles were torched and casteist abuses were hurled, they had claimed. These allegations were never probed.
In the violence, a Maratha youth Rahul Babaji Phatangale was killed. The police arrested three Dalit men.
Later that year, five men – all contractual workers at the Reliance Infrastructure Ltd – for their alleged involvement in the disruption caused at the anti-caste commemoration at Bhima Koregaon. They were actively involved in the Mumbai Electric Employees’ Union (MEEU) work, seeking adequate compensation for workers and fighting for their labour rights. From probing their “reasons” to be at Bhima Koregaon, the ATS had moved to look at their involvement in protecting and sheltering a person allegedly from the banned CPI (Maoist) organisation. While granting Singapanga bail, Bombay high court judge Bharati Dangre had noted that she did not find any prima facie evidence to hold him in custody. Others were granted “default bail”, after the ATS had failed to file chargesheet within the stipulated period.
three more cases registered with different sets of accused but revolving around the violence that broke out at Bhima Koregaon.
In April 2018, the Pune police had launched an all-India investigation into what it claimed – the spread of “Urban Naxalism”. Acting on the FIR registered by a Pune-based businessman Tushar Damgude, several teams of Pune police carried out synchronised raids in several cities on April 18, 2018. Organisers of Elgar Parishad, an event held at Shaniwar Wada on December 31, 2017, were questioned, their laptops and other electronic gadgets were seized
June 6 that year that the police made their first arrests. Five persons – Sudhir Dhawale, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Shoma Sen, and Rona Wilson – were arrested in the first round. The Pune police claimed that all arrested persons were involved in “anti- national” activities and were spreading the Maoist propaganda in the urban region. They were called “Urban Naxals”.
the accused persons, along with six more persons –Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Feriera, Vernon Gonsalves, Varavara Rao and Gautam Navlakha – were accused of plotting a “Rajiv Gandhi-style assassination” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The police introduced an “international angle” and claimed the arrested accused were in touch with Maoists from Nepal.
In 2020, the Union home ministry handed over the case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). On April 14, 2020, academic Anand Teltumbde and Navlakha were taken into custody. Singers and anti-caste activists of the cultural group Kabir Kala Manch – Sagar Gorkhe, Jyoti Jagtap and Ramesh Gaichore –were arrested too. Eight-four-year-old Jharkhand-based tribal rights activist and Jesuit priest, Father Stan Swamy, was also among those arrested. Swamy, following ill- treatment in Taloja jail, died on July 5 2021.