User:Rohitkeshavshrivastava

Palghar Lynching: The Postmortem Analysis

On the April 16, 2020, the brutal killing of Sadhus took place at Palghar, in Maharashtra by supposedly local criminals in the very presence of policemen exhibiting the level of utter lawlessness and police apathy, besides booming morale of criminal-politician nexus in the state (01).

While the so-deceased sadhus met their gory end en-route to attend the funeral of their spiritual Guru, in Gujarat, the macabre incident has obviously stirred the India’s conscience, where even holy Sages are not safe.

The Incident

The Palghar incident took place on the night of April 16 when three men, two Hindu Sages and their driver, who were from Kandivali, a suburb in Mumbai, were travelling by a car to Surat in Gujarat in order to attend a funeral (02), were gruesomely mobbed and massacred. The vehicle was taking an alternate internal route instead of travelling by the national highway, due to the lockdown that was in affect due to the spread of COVID-19 virus.

Their vehicle was stopped near the village Gadchinchale, in Dahanu Taluka of the tribal dominated Palghar district, which is 140 KMS North of Mumbai (03).

This lynching took place late night about 22.00 Hours, where after stopping the vehicle with the two Sages in it, the vehicle was attacked

As per the 2011 Census, the village has a population of 1,298 residents of which 93 per cent are from the Scheduled Tribes (03).

Where the three were dragged out of the car and beaten to death with sticks by a mob on suspicion that they were child-lifters.

The deceased were identified as Chikne Maharaj Kalpavrukshagiri (Age: 70 Years), Sushilgiri Maharaj (Age: 35 Years), and their driver Nilesh Telgade (Age: 30 Years).

The first eye witnesses were the two forest guards, ‘Sonudaji Borsa’ and ‘Prakash Vaswat’, and they had informed the police when the mob had gathered around. As per the eyewitness account of one of the forest guards, the Sages were coming from Triambak-Shirdi, and were on their way to Surat, but were stopped at Silvasa check point as they did not have the requisite permission to travel during lockdown. Due to which they were returning to Kandivali, in Mumbai.

As soon they had reached the forest check point at the village Gadchinchale, in Dahanu Taluka; a vigilante group was present beforehand. This vigilante group was intimidating the forest guards and threatening them, if they did not take out all the passengers from the vehicle, they would face consequences.

As per ‘Sonudaji Borsa’ the forest watchman, “the vehicle arrived at 21.30 hours, the mob asked the vehicle to stop but it did not. The mob then asked us to stop the vehicle, and if we did not they threatened us. So we stopped the vehicle” (04).

The occupants of the vehicle were then questioned to which they had replied that they were returning to Mumbai. However, present in the vigilante group were men armed with sticks and torches, and were calling for more people to join the mob.

“I asked Prakash Vaswat, the other forest watchman, to go and enquire, but then the crowd started to attack them and started pelting stones”, Borsa has stated. He has further added that a person by the name ‘Rajesh Soma Bhawer’ punchered the vehicle (04).

This worried the forest guards and then they made the call to the nearest police station, which is Kasa Police Station. Kasa police Station is roughly about 35 KMS, from where this incident took place (04).

‘Prakash Vaswat’, the second forest guard in his statement to Republic TV, has mentioned on camera that 2,000 to 3,000 people had eventually gathered. And that he along with forest guard Borsa had tries the best to control the situation. However, the Sarpanch ‘Chitra Choudhary’, has pegged this number to be around 500 to 600 (04).

At this juncture the Sarpanch of the village ‘Chitra Choudhary, who is from BJP also joined the forest guards and tried to control the situation while attempting to pacify the crowd. Together, they managed to hold back the crowd for about three hours, as per Borsa.

As capture in the video footing available with various TV channels, in including Republic TV, it seemed that the situation was under control, till the moment the police arrived. Which was about two hours after the witnesses had called the police station. It is claimed by the witnesses that 12 to 14 police personnel arrived on the scene of the crime (04).

The situation appears to have gone out of control, as captured on camera when a police personnel bought out Chikne Maharaj Kalpavrukshagiri’ out of the forest check point cabin, and led him towards the mob; eventually handing him over to the mob, and leisurely walking away in the opposite direction.

The lynching actually had started when a NCP ‘Zila Parishad’ Head ‘Kashinath Chaudhary’ arrived at the scene, wherein the police was also present (04).

The family members of accused are threatening the eye witnesses. ‘Chitra Choudhary’ has been threatened not only for herself, but also for her son. Rajesh’s family, the person who had punchured the vehicle tire is threatening one of the forest guard witnesses (04).

‘Anil Deshmukh’ the Maharashtra Home Minister subsequently released a list of 101 persons arrested in connection with this horrendous crime. He has stated that this lynching is a result of rumors and fear mongering about child lifting and theft, as the official statement in his tweet (05). He has further blamed the ‘social media’ for circulation of these rumors and of fearmongering.

The Aftermath

In a further development in the Palghar mob-lynching case, a Mumbai-based lawyer, ‘Ghanshyam Upadhyay’, on Friday, April 24, 2020;, has moved to the ‘Bombay High Court’ seeking the transfer of the investigation into the case to the ‘National Investigation Agency’ (NIA) (06).

The plea states that the petitioner; a follower ‘Vaidik Sanatan Dharm’, has been pained by the brutal murder of the two Hindu saints and their driver. Quoting the ‘Bhima Koregaon’ incident, the petitioner has expressed the inability of the state CID to investigate the case, due to the alleged involvement of policemen in the crime.

Furthermore, on the accusation that the crime was fueled by the spreading of rumors on ‘social media’, as claimed by Deshmukh, it has to be noted that the mob in question were not the persons who were hooked on to the digital media, and were peasants and villagers.

Also, as claimed by ‘Sunil Deodhar’ in his tweet, that “Kashinath Chaudhary a district panchayat member of NCP, along with CPI(M) panchayat members; Vishnu Patra, Subhash Bhavar and Dharma Bhavar were present during the incident” (07). Raising question marks at the political nexus and the vested interests prevailing between different power centers.

For Detailed Report Refer To: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hxglsy_qC-9nDzNWlGerIDchB3i_3Rlm/view?usp=sharing

References

01. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/abhiram/palghar-lynching-who-killed-sadhus-why/

02. https://news.abplive.com/originals/insight-with-jitendra-dixit/palghar-lynching-eyewitnesses-narrate-what-happened-that-fateful-night-1208548

03. https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/palghar-mob-lynching-mahant-kalpavruksha-giri-6370528/

04. https://www.republicworld.com/india-news/general-news/watch-three-eyewitnesses-of-palghar-mob-lynching-speak-out.html

05. https://punemirror.indiatimes.com/pune/others/palghar-mob-lynching-anil-deshmukh-releases-list-of-101-people-arrested/articleshow/75288323.cms

06. https://www.republicworld.com/india-news/law-and-order/palghar-mob-lynching-lawyer-moves-bombay-hc-seeking-transfer-of-case.html

07. https://www.opindia.com/2020/04/maharashtra-palghar-lynching-suspect-ncp-members-sunil-deodhar/