Elgar Parishad-Koregaon Bhima case: Violence a deep-rooted conspiracy, says Bombay High Court

Elgar Parish-Koregaon Bhima violence, in which several rights activists are being investigated by Pune Police, was a "deep-rooted" conspiracy which h "extremely serious repercussions", Bombay High Court has said.

observation was me by a division bench of Justices B P Dharmhikari and S V Kotwal while dismissing a petition filed by Anand Teltumbde, one of activists accused in case, seeking to quash an FIR against him.

Teltumbde h claimed that he was being falsely implicated in case.

In his plea, activist denied all charges against him even as police opposed same and claimed that y have ample evidence implicating him.

bench h dismissed activist's plea on December 21, order for which became available Monday.

bench observed that re was incriminating material against Teltumbde.

" offence is serious. conspiracy is deep-rooted and has extremely serious repercussions. Considering nature and magnitude of conspiracy, investigating ncy is required to be given sufficient opportunity to unearth evidence against accused," bench said.

Expressing its satisfaction with probe ncy, bench said that Pune Police h sufficient material against Teltumbde and that allegations against him were t "baseless".

HC furr ted that initially probe by police was limited to violence that h erupted on January 1 this year, a day after Elgar Parish event was held at historic Shaniwarwa in Pune.

"However, w scope of investigation is t restricted to Koregaon-Bhima incident, but activities leing to incident and subsequent activities as well are subject matter of investigation," bench said.

refore, Teltumbde's connection with banned organisation, Communist Party of India (Maoist), will have to be probed into, it said.

"In present case, allegations and material against petitioner (Teltumbde) travel beyond mere allegations of him being a member of banned organisation. His participation and active role is spelt out in material collected by police," judges said.

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While opposing Teltumbde's plea, ditional Public Prosecutor Aruna Kamat-Pai h submitted to HC five letters allegedly written by accused to each or in which Teltumbde's name was mentioned as an active participant.

Teltumbde's counsel Mihir Desai claimed that letters cant be relied upon to prove his complicity, as y name a person 'Anand' or 'Com. Anand' and hence it cant be conclusively said that person referred to in letters is in fact petitioner.

However, bench said it was satisfied that police has material to establish identity of Teltumbde as 'Anand' or 'Com. Anand', as referred to in documents and letters submitted, which also form part of charge sheet.

Pune Police h last month filed a charge sheet in a local court against ten activists and absconding Maoist leers in Elgar Parish case.

It named ten accused including activists Surendra Gling, Rona Wilson, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut and Sudhir Dhavale, who were arrested in June.

Or five accused named in charge sheet are Maoist leers Dipak alias Milind Teltumbe, Kishan Da alias Prashant Bose and Prakash alias Rituparn Goswami.

police h alleged that inflammatory speeches and provocative statements me by several activists during Elgar Parish conclave h contributed to violence that broke out around Koregaon Bhima vill next day, January 1.

January 1, 2018 marked bicentennial celebration of 1818 battle of Koregaon Bhima.

Several activists were named in FIR lodged on January 8.

Eight more activists, including Teltumbde, were named in ar FIR filed in October.

Some of activists-- Arun Ferreira, Vern Gonsalves, Sudha Bharwaj, P Varavara Rao and Gautam Navlakha-- have alrey been arrested by police.

According to police, Elgar Parish event was funded and supported by Maoists.

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