Koregaon Bhima Commission summons NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Feb 23 to depose before it as witness

The Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry on Wednesday summoned Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar to appear before it on February 23 and 24 to record evidence in connection with the January 2018 violence at a war memorial in Pune district of Maharashtra.

The schedule of the upcoming hearings in Mumbai, between February 21 and 25, was released by V V Palnitkar, the secretary of the commission.

Earlier, the panel had summoned Pawar in 2020 but he couldn’t appear before it due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown.

Pawar had in October 2018 filed an affidavit before the two-member commission headed by retired High Court judge Justice J N Patel probing into the causes of the violence in the Koregaon Bhima area on January 1, 2018, in which one person had died and several others were left injured.

As per the commission’s schedule, Pawar is supposed to appear before the commission in Mumbai on February 23 and 24. Along with Pawar, the commission has also summoned senior police officers, including IPS officer Mohammed Suvez Haque, who was the superintendent (SP) of Pune rural police at the time of the Koregaon Bhima violence, Sandeep Pakhale, the then additional SP of Pune rural police and Ravindra Sengaonkar, the then additional commissioner of Pune city police, to depose as witnesses between February 21 and February 24.

The two-member probe commission of retired chief justice of the Calcutta High Court J N Patel and former Maharashtra chief secretary Sumit Mullick is conducting a probe into the matter.

According to the Pune police, violence had broken out on January 1, 2018, between caste groups near the war memorial during the bicentennial anniversary of the 1818 battle of Koregaon Bhima.

Dalit organisations commemorate the victory of the East India Company over the Peshwas of Pune in the battle because the British forces, according to some historical accounts, mainly included soldiers from the oppressed Mahar community.

But some right-wing organisations had opposed the celebration, leading to the violence in 2018. One person had died and several others, including 10 police personnel, were injured in the incident.