Palghar mob lynching case: 32 of 50 arrested on Wednesday sent to 14-day judicial custody

Dahanu judicial magistrate MV Jawale on Thursday remanded 32 people arrested in the Palghar lynching case to 14-day judicial custody, even as the remaining 18 accused

Dahanu judicial magistrate MV Jawale on Thursday remanded 32 people arrested in the Palghar lynching case to 14-day judicial custody, even as the remaining 18 accused will be produced before the same court on Friday, said Amrut Adhikari, counsel for the accused. All the accused are lodged in the Palghar sub-jail and will undergo Covid-19 tests as per protocol, said Adhikari.

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Meanwhile, justice PP Jadhav, the Thane special sessions court judge, on Thursday postponed the bail application hearing of 62 other accused to November 3 after state’s special prosecutor Satish Maneshinde wanted the three investigative officers who registered the three first information report (FIRs) to be present in the court. The judge has asked the three officers to be present in the court on November 3.

The Maharashtra crime investigation department (CID) on Wednesday had named 208 new accused and arrested 50 more people in the April 16 lynching case in which a mob attacked two sadhus and their driver. Kalpvrush Giri, 70, Sushil Giri, 35, and driver Nilesh Telgade, 30, were dragged out of their vehicle and thrashed by the mob in Gadhchinchale village, about 110 km from Palghar, after the villagers suspected them to be thieves.

Until now, a total of 366 accused have been arrested, of which 11 are juveniles. Of these, 37 accused, including nine juveniles, have been released on bail, as the CID in its charge sheet did not name their involvement in the lynching.

Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Ram Kadam on Thursday, in a letter to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, demanded that the case be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as the state CID was “not making any progress” in the lynching probe.