India Tomorrow
NEW DELHI, APRIL 14—Academician Anand Teltumbde, grandson-in-law of Dr. B R Ambedkar and human rights activist Gautam Navalakha surrendered to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in New Delhi on Tuesday. Teltumbde is a Dalit.
Both of them have been accused of Bhima-Koregaon violence on January 1, 2018.
But both of them have denied the charges levelled against them.
The violence broke out when Dalit community members had assembled to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the battle between the British forces and the then Maratha rulers in which the later were defeated. Dalits were celebrating the event as the Mahars, a dalit sub-sect, accounted for majority of the British forces.
However, disturbances took place at the event in which one person was killed. This also led to violence at different places in Maharashtra.
Police held Teltumbde’s Elgar Parishad and several academics responsible for the violence. Teltumbde was also accused of hatching a conspiracy to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
They were booked under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) when there was BJP government in Maharashtra.
When BJP lost power in assembly elections, Shiv Sena formed its government with the help of NCP, Congress and other parties.
Activists expected that the cases against them would fall as NCP and Congress had also been of the view that the charges were fabricated.
But NIA that works under the Central government, took over the case immediately after SS-NCP-Congress came to power. Unlike CBI, NIA is empowered to take over any case without permission of the state government.
The Supreme Court on March 16 asked them to surrender to the NIA within three weeks.
However, they demanded extension of time for surrender saying that going to jail during the Covid-19 pandemic would amount to a “virtual death sentence”.
But the apex court on April 8 turned down their and asked to surrender within a week.
A bench of Justice Arun Mishra on April 8 said that the accused should have surrendered within three weeks of time honouring the orders of the Supreme Court that had rejected his anticipatory bail application.
While Navalakha is a former editor of the Economic and Political Weekly, Teltumbde is an engineer and a graduate of Indian Institute of Management.
