Koregaon Bhima violence: Pune Police urges HC to turn down Navlakha’s plea seeking quashing of FIR

Additional Public Prosecutor Aruna Pai told the court that there is enough evidence to reject Navlakha’s petition, but that cannot be made public. Pai added that Teltumbde and Swamy are merely “suspects” and the investigation against is ongoing.

The bench told the state that “whatever stage your probe is at and your reasons for inability to make that material public” should be put on record. It added that what is necessary and relevant to the case must be brought on record. The court directed the Pune Police to file an affidavit by December 5 in this regard. The matter will be heard next on December 14.

The FIR, lodged by Pune resident Tushar Damgude on January 8, had initially also named Harshali Potdar and Sudhir Dhawale of the Republican Panthers, and Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor, Jyoti Jagtap, Deepak Dhengle of the Pune-based Kabir Kala Manch. It had alleged that the accused, as per the strategy of CPI-Maoist, had “misled Dalits and spread thoughts of violence” in their minds, which resulted in the violence of January 1.