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Elgar Parishad: Would have suspended Pune’s top cop, says Pawar
Pawar was speaking at a programme organised by Akhil Bhartiya Shivmahatosav Samiti in Pune.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday expressed anger over the police action against activists in the Elgar Parishad case saying if he was in power, he would have immediately suspended the Pune police commissioner.
Pawar was speaking at a programme organised by Akhil Bhartiya Shivmahatosav Samiti in Pune. He said police cannot act against someone merely because the person has expressed his views as there is a right of expressing views in the country.
Pawar said, “It’s good that there is Supreme Court in the country. The court has passed strictures on police. Even then the police are trying to file various articles as evidence in the Elgar Parishad case.”
The Pune police have arrested 10 activists in the Elgar Parishad case, which according to officials, aggravated the violence at Bhima Koregaon on January 1 in 2018.
“It is a complete misuse of power and, if I had been in power, I would have suspend the police officers who filed the cases,” said Pawar.
The NCP supremo felicitated former justice BJ Kolse Patil, who was one of the organisers in the Elgar Parishad where some activists delivered provocative speeches on December 31, 2017.
Kolse Patil said, “I had organised Elgar Parishad in Pune at Shaniwarwada. We raised voice against injustice, but the police and government filed cases. I don’t care about cases.”
