Maha: Koregaon-Bhima panel resumes hearing after pandemic break

After a gap of nearly 14 months, the Koregaon Bhima Inquiry Commission, probing the January 2018 violence near Koregaon Bhima in Maharashtra's Pune district, resumed hearing the case on Monday. The proceedings of the panel, headed by Justice J N Patel (retired) and former IAS officer Sumeet Mullick, could not be held all these days after COVID-19 restrictions were imposed in the state.

Pune (Maharashtra):After a gap of nearly 14 months, the Koregaon Bhima Inquiry Commission, probing the January 2018 violence near Koregaon Bhima in Maharashtra's Pune district, resumed hearing the case on Monday. The proceedings of the panel, headed by Justice J N Patel (retired) and former IAS officer Sumeet Mullick, could not be held all these days after COVID-19 restrictions were imposed in the state.

On Monday, the proceedings resumed through a semi-virtual set-up with only witnesses and advocates concerned being allowed to present in person. Media persons and the general public were allowed to attend the proceeding virtually. On the first day of the hearing, Rekha Shivle, the then sarpanch of Vadhu village where the alleged incident of vandalising a signboard at the samadhi of Govind Mahar had occurred on December 30, 2017, continued her deposition.

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Another witness, Pralhad Gaikwad, one of the descendants of Govind Mahar, who claims to be the owner of the land where the samadhi is situated, was also deposed before the commission. Violence had erupted near the Koregaon Bhima memorial on January 1, 2018, during the bicentennial celebration of the 1818 battle wherein the East India Company's forces, which included sepoys of the Mahar caste, a Dalit community, defeated the army of the Brahmin Peshwa ruler of Pune.

Dalits commemorate the victory as a symbol of the defeat of the old Brahmanical order. Pune Police had claimed that inflammatory statements made a day earlier at Elgar Parishad conclave in Pune on December 31, 2017, allegedly backed by Maoists, led to the violence. The commission had been given multiple extensions by the state government to submit its report.

PTI