The Bhima Koregaon Inquiry Commission will begin its next round of hearings on February 21 in Mumbai, with five people, including Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar, and former Pune rural police superintendent Suvez Haque, scheduled to appear.
The commission has also called for submission of an affidavit of from Vishwas Nangare-Patil who was Special Inspector General of the Kolhapur range when the Bhima Koregaon riots broke out. He will not be deposed, but will only be called in to file his affidavit.
The commission is chaired by Justice Jainarayan Patel and consists of Sumit Mullick, chief information commissioner of the Maharashtra government. The hearings will be held at the Sahyadri guesthouse located in Malabar Hills between February 21 and 25.
First on the list is Ravindra Sengaonkar, additional commissioner of police and second-in- command during the preparation and execution of police bandobast at the Elgar Parishad on December 31, 2017. In the first few days of January 2018, riots broke out in Pune owing to the disturbance at the 200th anniversary memorial of the battle of Bhima Koregaon.
During her deposition in Pune, the then commissioner of Pune police Rashmi Shukla, had stated that it was the then joint commissioner of police, Ravindra Kadam, and additional commissioner of police Ravindra Sengaonkar who were undertaking the bandobast at the Parishad while she was concentrating on the possible long march which eventually did not happen.
{{/usCountry}}During her deposition in Pune, the then commissioner of Pune police Rashmi Shukla, had stated that it was the then joint commissioner of police, Ravindra Kadam, and additional commissioner of police Ravindra Sengaonkar who were undertaking the bandobast at the Parishad while she was concentrating on the possible long march which eventually did not happen.
{{/usCountry}}Second on the list is Sandip Pakhale who was additional superintendent of the Pune rural police at the time.
Third is Sharad Pawar who is called to the commission hearing on February 23 followed by Suvez Haque. Haque was the SP of Pune rural police when the tension between the family of Govind Gopal Gaikwad Mahar and the gram panchayat of Vadhu Budrukh started erupting over a board installed at the memorial of Chatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj that gave credit to Govind Gopal for his burial. However, due to a rival belief of villagers that Govind Gopal was not the one who gave the Maratha emperor his last rites, the board was vandalised.
SP Haq had visited Vadhu Budrukh on December 29, 2017 and placated the crowd.
The last person on the list is Harshali Potdar who is part of the Republican Panthers Caste Annihilation Movement and whose name has also appeared in the investiation of the Pune police in the Elgar Parishad case which led to arrest of several activists, lawyers, and journalists for alleged links with the banned organisation of CPI-Maoist. The case is now under investiagtion by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).