Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar will not be able to appear before the commission appointed by the Maharashtra government to probe the 2018 Bhima Koregaon clashes on February 23 and 24. He has accordingly conveyed the same to the commission, Maharashtra Minister and NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said on Tuesday.
Mr. Malik, who gave this information in a video statement, said the NCP chief would “definitely” appear before the probe panel in future to record his version of events.
Sources said that Mr. Pawar had visited the commission on Monday to request the panel to grant him a fresh date for his cross-examination in the case and to ensure that they would not be inconvenienced by his inability to present himself on February 23. The commission had earlier this month asked Mr. Pawar to depose before the panel on February 23 and 24.
The two-member commission, comprising retired Kolkata High Court Chief Justice J.N. Patel and former Maharashtra Chief Secretary Sumit Mullick, had been set up by the erstwhile Devendra Fadnavis government in February 2018 to probe the sequence of events leading up to the New Year’s Day violence on the occasion of the bicentennial anniversary of the 1818 battle of Koregaon Bhima.
The clashes between two groups which erupted in Bhima-Koregaon village and its environs in Pune district had left one person dead.
The commission was initially given a period of four months to submit its report, but its tenure had to be extended repeatedly in order to allow it to complete its investigation.
Hamstrung by financial resources, the commission has since received several extensions. Hearings of senior officers and Mr. Pawar were scheduled between March 30 and April 4, 2020. However, the COVID-19 outbreak compelled the commission to defer all hearings until further notice.
Following the clashes, the Pune City police had carried out two countrywide crackdowns (in June and August 2018 respectively) in connection with the Elgaar Parishad- Bhima Koregaon violence by searching residences of several noted academics, activists and intellectuals known for their dissentious views against the powers that be and their work among the dispossessed.
The houses of lawyer Surendra Gadling, academic Shoma Sen, and activists Rona Wilson, Mahesh Raut and Sudhir Dhawale were searched in the first crackdown and those of the deceased Father Stan Swamy, writer Gautam Navlakha, trade unionist and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, poet P. Varavara Rao, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira and academic-writer Anand Teltumbde in their second.
They were among the 16 arrested in connection with the Elgaar Parishad case, which was later transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Except Ms. Bharadwaj, who was released on bail last year, none of the incarcerated activists has been granted relief.
