Bhima-Koregaon: NIA seeks case transfer to special Mumbai court, files fresh FIR
Pune/UNI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has submitted an application before a city court, which has been hearing the Bhima-Koregaon case, seeking the case transfer to a special court in Mumbai.
The case, which was earlier being investigated by the Pune Police, was handed over to the central agency last week by the Centre, weeks after a new Maha Vikas Aghadi government came to power in Maharashtra.
A defence lawyer in the case confirmed on Thursday that the NIA had filed the criminal miscellaneous application before Additional Sessions Judge (Special) S R Navandar on Wednesday.
The agency has asked for the transfer of all records and proceedings of the case to the special NIA court in Mumbai.
The matter will come up for hearing on February 3, he added.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh has expressed displeasure with the central government’s move, saying that the Centre should not have transferred the case to the NIA without consulting the state government.
“We met the advocate-general to discuss what should be done after receiving the letter,” he told reporters in Mumbai on Wednesday.
Following news of the case being handed over to the NIA, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party had criticised the Centre’s decision.
Notably, ten rights activists were arrested in 2018 in connection with the Bhima-Koregaon case, when the Bharatiya Janata Party was in power in the state.
It may be recalled that the violence broke out between Dalits and upper castes in the village of Bhima-Koregaon near Pune on January 1, 2018, a day after an event in Pune.
The event, called the Elgar Parishad, was organised to commemorate the Battle of Bhima-Koregaon between the East India Company and the Peshwa faction of the Maratha Confederacy in 1818.
In the violence, one person died during the ‘bandh’, called by Dalit outfits, the following day.
Image Credit: IBNS File
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