Saffron team visits Petlawad, brawls with shunted cop

An “unofficial” Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) delegation of Malwa Prant that came to meet people who were allegedly beaten up by the police, entered into a heated argument with former Petlawad sub-divisional officer of police Rakesh Vyas over his role in the incident.

An “unofficial” Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) delegation of Malwa Prant that came to meet people who were allegedly beaten up by the police, entered into a heated argument with former Petlawad sub-divisional officer of police Rakesh Vyas over his role in the incident.

The RSS members entered into a heated argument with former Petlawad sub-divisional officer of police Rakesh Vyas over his role in the incident. (HT file)

Vyas, who was removed from his post and attached to the inspector general of police office in Indore following pressure from the sangh, got into an argument with former additional solicitor general of India Vivek Sharan and former state additional attorney general Manoj Dwivedi over his role in the incident.

The RSS has accused him of beating up sangh workers in a police lock up.

“Prima facie, there is a case of police atrocity against RSS workers,” Sharan told Hindustan Times.

There were injury marks on the bodies of the RSS workers that were allegedly inflicted by police and the way they were forcibly picked up by the police from their homes shows that police had a grudge against them, said Dwivedi.

Asked whether it was an RSS delegation, the members who also included Prof Kumbhan Khandelwal of Government Arts and Commerce College, Indore and high court advocate Govind Purohit, said

“it was not an official delegation”, but added that they will submit a report to the “right” platform.

Earlier, the delegation members first went to the house of RSS district sahkarvahak Akash Chouhan to meet his father Mukut, who was allegedly beaten up by police.

The team then went to the local RSS office and met people who were allegedly beaten up by police and sent to jail. The delegation also met Vikas Joshi, one of the victims, who showed them his injuries inflicted by the police.

The RSS team then went to Rajapura, a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood, where residents told the delegation that they had not mentioned any names in their report as they did not want to be drawn into the controversy.