Probe panel to summon Sharad Pawar for deposition in Bhima-Koregaon case

The Bhima-Koregaon judicial inquiry commission (JIC) on Monday said that it will call Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar for deposition in the matter soon. While hearing an application seeking the summoning of Sharad Pawar, the probe panel, headed by former Calcutta High Court chief justice JN Patel, said that Pawar will be called when the involved parties are allowed to cross-examine him. Pawar has already filed an affidavit in the matter.

In an application filed February 20, Sagar Shinde had requested the JIC to summon the former Maharashtra CM in the matter. The application had referred to a press conference addressed by Pawar on February 18 where, as per the applicant, the NCP chief had said that Milind Ekbote and Sambhaji Bhide had created a different atmosphere in Bhima-Koregaon area. 

"It looks like Pawar knows more about the violence than what he has mentioned in an affidavit filed by him earlier," Shinde said in his application.

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What Pawar said in the presser

In the press conference that Shinde has mentioned, Sharad Pawar had said, "In the Bhima Koregaon case, Maharashtra Police has mentioned a lot of things in the investigation. Locals have been cooperative with people coming there for many years. Sambhaji Bhide and Milind Ekbote created a different atmosphere at that place and launched a campaign over it, which we got to see there." Bhide and Ekbote are the two right-wing figures who were booked for instigating and orchestrating violence on January 1, 2018, at Bhima Koregaon village during a public event.

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JIC to probe Jan 1, 2018 violence

The JIC, following its formation, had invited affidavits from everyone who had any knowledge about the violence after which Shinde filed an affidavit claiming that he was present on the spot at that time. The probe panel was constituted by the Maharashtra government in February 2018 to investigate the course of events that led to violence in the preceding month during the 200th-anniversary celebrations of the Bhima-Koregaon battle.

One person was killed and several others were injured in the incident. The police have filed 58 cases against 162 people in the matter.

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(With ANI inputs)