MUMBAI: After Gujarat MLA Jinesh Mewani and JNU student’s leader Umar Khalid, a case has been registered against six members alleged urban Maoist outfit Kabir Kala Manch (KKM) for allegedly making provocative speeches during the Elgaar rally at Shaniwar Wada in Pune on December 31 to commemorate 200 years of Bhima Koregaon battle.
Based on a complaint lodged by a 37-year-old businessman from Pune, Tushar Damgude, the FIR was registered against Sudhir Dhavale, Sagar Gorkhe, Harshali Potdar, Ramesh Gaychor, Deepak Dengle and Jyoti Jagtap, a police official said.
The complainant alleged that the “provocative” speeches and presentations made during the entire programme “promoted” enmity between two groups.
The complaint also stated that the “inciting speeches and presentations” made during the Elgaar Parishad led to the violence on January 1 at Koregaon Bhima in the district, the official added.
In the FIR, the complainant said that members of the KKM were already arrested for their links with the Communist Party of India (Maoist) whose strategy is to incite Dalits to take the violent route instead of constitutional one.
Meanwhile, Pune police arrested 12 men including three minors over a week after January 1 caste clashes at Bhima Koregaon. Nine of them have been remanded to police custody, police sources have said.
A total of 17 people have been arrested in the case till now, police said while adding that the 12 men arrested on Monday all belong to Bhima Koregaon, Sanaswadi and Kondhapuri villages.
The police have refused to reveal names of these accused citing that the case is very sensitive.
We are interrogating all of them. We are trying to understand the whole sequence of events and trying to understand the exact reason behind the violence or whether it was instigated by someone, the police added.
Though in all 17 people have been arrested, the police are still searching for more people in the area. We have identified many people from the CCTV footage and are trying to look for them. The combing operation will continue till we get to catch all the people who are seen in the CCTV footage committing various acts of violence, said a senior police official related to the probe.