The Pune Police on Thursday submitted a charge sheet of over 5,000 pages against the five activists arrested on June 6 for their alleged links with the outlawed group, Communist Party of India (Maoist), and the Bhima-Koregaon clashes on January 1.
On September 2, the court had granted the police a 90-day extension for filing a charge sheet against the accused — Dalit activist-publisher Sudhir Dhawale, prominent human rights lawyer Surendra Gadling, tribal activist Mahesh Raut, Nagpur University English professor Shoma Sen and activist Rona Wilson. The indictment was filed by the Pune police on Thursday evening in the court of Judge K.D. Vadane.
A senior police officer said, “The accused have been indicted under a number of Sections like 124A and 153 of the Indian Penal Code as well as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act [UAPA] for seditious activities, propagating a wrong kind of history designed to foster a climate of hate, sowing seeds of discord between communities, planning to overthrow the established government and acting as a channel for funds for a proscribed organisation.”
The police had filed the application seeking an extension on the grounds that as the UAPA had been invoked against the accused the period to file the charge sheet could be extended up to 180 days as the investigation was not yet complete. During her arguments in September seeking an extension to file the charge sheet, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwala Pawar had alleged that the accused had received funding amounting to ₹5 lakh for allegedly fomenting the Bhima-Koregaon clashes on January 1.
‘Grave concern’
Remarking that the phenomenon of ‘urban naxalism’ was graver than the one in the jungles, Ms. Pawar had presented before the court that the police had evidence of the funds being given to the accused with instructions to aggravate the clashes during the bicentenary celebrations of the 1818 battle of Bhima-Koregaon.
The prosecution further submitted that the police needed the additional time to thoroughly examine the vast quantity of electronic data in the form of CDs, pen drives, hard disks that had been seized from the homes of the accused during the multi-city raids on June 6 besides probing their bank accounts and phone call records. The investigating officer in the case, ACP Shivaji Pawar had submitted before the court that the accused activists were allegedly attempting to veer youth from prestigious institutes towards Naxalism.
The two countrywide swoops by the Pune police, in June and in August, were based on an FIR registered at Vishrambaug Wada police station in connection with ostensibly provocative speeches made during the controversial Elgaar Parishad. The FIR was based on a complaint by one Tushar Damgude against six participants, including Mr. Dhawale, of the Parishad. Those named in the FIR were members of the Kabir Kala Manch, a radical Dalit cultural troupe.
The complaint had accused the KKM activists of making a number of “inflammatory” speeches and delivering “socially divisive” presentations during the course of the troupe’s performance and recitals at the Elgaar Parishad.
