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With BJP out of power in Maharashtra, Ekbote refuses to appear before Bhima Koregaon Commission
Ekbote is an accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence case in which he was alleged to have incited violence against Dalits at Bhima Koregaon on January 1, 2018 during the 200th commemoration of the battle of Bhima Koregaon
PUNE: Samasta Hindu Aghadi president Milind Ekbote, who was arrested and later released on bail in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence in January 2018, refused to depose before the Bhima Koregaon inquiry commission during its hearing on Friday.
Ekbote moved an affidavit before commission members Justice JN Patel (retd) and former bureaucrat Sumit Mullick expressing his inability to appear before the commission.
On Friday, Ekbote in his affidavit drew attention to the change in government in Maharashtra and said in his affidavit: “The recent political developments in Maharashtra have indicated that whatever the honest and impartial investigations carried out between 2017 and 2019 by police authorities are likely to be obliterated or revisited in order to ensure the safe passage for the different hues of Marxists spread all over the political and social spectrum.”
He also expressed the fear that his case was “likely to be hampered, particularly in view of investigation pending and political spectrum has totally changed, which may go overboard to implicate me falsely”.
Ekbote is an accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence case in which he was alleged to have incited violence against Dalits at Bhima Koregaon on January 1, 2018 during the 200th commemoration of the battle of Bhima Koregaon. He was arrested by Pune rural police in connection with the case and was later released on bail by the Supreme Court.
Ekbote apologised to the Commission for his failure to respond to the summons issued asking him to attend and depose on oath on Friday. He said he did not wish to depose before the Commission “to protect my interest in the court of law and in society at large”. He said in his affidavit that investigations into the Bhima Koregaon violence were yet to be completed and the chargesheet had not been filed till today.
“One of the accusations levelled against me is spreading communal disharmony in and around Koregaon-Vadu which is a false and politically motivated allegation,” he stated, adding that he instead alleged that it was the organisers of Elgar Parishad with the help of leftist organisations who were behind the violence.
Ekbote said he was being “cornered“ by leftist, pro-Naxal and anti-national forces because of his caste and nationalist political philosophy, opposing any form of Marxism.
After 21 months and four extensions, the two-member Bhima Koregaon Inquiry Commission set up by the previous Devendra Fadnavis-led Bharatiya Janata Party government is nowhere close to submitting its findings into the causes of the caste riots that shook up Maharashtra in January 2018.
On January 1, 2018, riots broke out in various parts of Pune district on the occasion of the 200th commemoration day of the Bhima-Koregaon battle which has emerged as a symbol of Dalit pride.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar in December 2019 had said that the arrests of nine activists in connection with the violence in Bhima Koregaon was wrong and vengeful. He had demanded constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe into the actions of Pune police.
Commission’s lawyer Advocate Satpute said, “Ekbote had given an application before the commission and the commission has discharged him accordingly.”
