NIA court rejects default bail of five accused in Bhima Koregaon case

Mumbai

A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court on Tuesday rejected the default bail plea of five accused in the Bhima Koregaon caste violence case.

Special NIA judge Rajesh Katariya rejected the pleas of former professor of Nagpur university Shoma Sen, advocate Surendra Gadling, activist Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson and Mahesh Raut. All of them were arrested on June 6, 2018 from different locations.

Their default bail petition was first filed before the sessions court in Pune where the case was registered and investigated by the Pune police before NIA took over.

The grounds for filing the petition was that the 90-day extension that was granted to the prosecuting agency for filing the chargesheet was illegal.

On January 1, 1818, a battle was fought between the British Army and the Peshwas and they were forcibly removed. To honour their gallantry, a monument was built called the ‘Vijay Stambh’. On January 1, 1927, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar visited the site and started an annual tradition to celebrate the occasion. On December 31, 2017, a public meeting was organised called the ‘Elgar Parishad’ and the next day a large number of Dalits and Bahujans gathered and were attacked by a mob which resulted in the death of a Maratha youth.

On January 2, 2018, Anita Sawale filed an FIR against Hindutva leaders Milind Ekbote and Sambhaji Bhide and subsequently 22 FIRs were registered in the case. Most of them are under investigation. Subsequently, the Pune police conducted a crackdown and arrested Mr. Gadling, Mr. Dhawale, Mr. Raut, Ms. Sen and Mr. Wilson, Varvara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, Gautam Navlakha, Babu, late Father Stan Swamy, Ramesh Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe and Jyoti Jagtap.