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This is an archive article published on January 4, 2018

Bhima Koregaon clash: Three women blame Hindutva duo, but say they were not seen in clash zone

On Wednesday, a second complaint was filed against the two by an office-bearer of an organisation working for the welfare of nomadic tribes in Maharashtra.

Two Hindutva leaders booked on charges of ‘orchestrating violence’ in Pune Milind Ekbote (left) and Sambhaji Bhide (right)

TWO women who filed the FIRs against Hindutva leaders Sambhaji Bhide and Milind Ekbote in connection with the Bhima Koregaon clash insisted that their complaints were based on the “nightmare” they had gone through and they were not being directed by any political outfits.

However, one day after filing their complaints, they said they had not seen Bhide and Ekbote in the clashes.

‘’Our complaint is based on what we saw in Bhima Koregaon and Sanaswadi on January 1. Our FIR was not filed at the instigation of any leaders but based on the nightmare that we went through…. We strongly feel the violence was pre-planned by the two Hindutva leaders to wreck our celebration,’’ said Anita Sawale, 39, who along with Anjana Gaikwad, filed the first FIR against Ekbote and Bhide, accusing them of orchestrating violence during the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon.

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In the FIR registered on Tuesday, Sawale said she had seen the suspects named in the FIR “with her own eyes”. But on Wednesday, the two women told The Indian Express that though they had not seen the Hindutva leaders, their inflammatory comments had led to mob violence. “We did not see them, but much before our celebrations, they seemed to have planned it all. Their comments against the Elgaar Parishad (an event on December 31) are very much on social media…. Our leaders like Prakash Ambedkar have also said these two leaders are behind the violence,’’ Sawale said.

On Wednesday, a second complaint was filed against the two by Sushma Andhare, an office-bearer of an organisation working for the welfare of nomadic tribes in Maharashtra. “These two leaders (Bhide and Ekbote) had incited the violence through their supporters. Them not being there does not mean they were not involved,” Andhare told The Indian Express. “In the past, there was never any opposition to people going to Bhima Koregaon. But this time it was a planned conspiracy by Bhide and Ekbote,” she said.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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