The Maharashtra police have arrested a youth from Aurangabad district for posting vitriolic comments on social media against the slain Communist Party of India leader and noted lawyer-activist Govind Pansare.
The Aurangabad police registered a case against Amol Patil for uploading a virulent jingle targeting slain rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, Pansare and, oddly, Purushottam Khedekar, president of the fringe Maratha Seva Sangh.
Mr. Khedekar, known for his extremist and often vicious anti-Brahmin views, has been severely criticised by liberals and Ambedkarite writers in the past. In his jingle, a pastiche of a popular whisky advertisement, Patil said ‘first it was Dabholkar, then Pansare and now Khedekar [perhaps implying it was his turn next].’
Mr. Khedekar, also a founder of the extreme right-wing, anti-Brahmin Sambhaji Brigade, gained instant notoriety after the vandalism at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) in Pune in 2004 that was orchestrated ostensibly to protest against American professor James Laine’s book Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India .
Mr. Khedekar’s inclusion is curious as his views are antithetical to those of the secular, left-leaning Dabholkar and Pansare. “It is a routine inquiry in the wake of Mr. Pansare’s murder. We are interrogating him as his post that went viral on Facebook and WhatsApp referred to Mr. Pansare,” said Ritesh Kumar, Inspector General (Kolhapur Range). “We are trying to determine whether he had any connection with the late CPI leader and what the motive was behind uploading this post.”
