Willing to transfer 2020 Palghar lynching case to CBI for 'impartial' probe: Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra govt to SC

Mumbai: The Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government on Tuesday informed the Supreme Court that it is ready and willing to transfer the probe in Palghar lynching to CBI.

The move which comes more than two years after the incident is seen as a big U-Turn by the Maharashtra government. Till the time the Uddhav Thackrey-led government was in power in the state, the apex court was informed that there shall be no Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in the Palghar lynching case.

The Uddhav government, during its tenure, had told the Supreme Court that the Maharashtra Police was competent and willing to handle the investigation.

Now, a fresh affidavit has been filed before the Supreme Court in which the Shinde-led government said that it is very willing to transfer the probe into 2020 Palghar lynching to the CBI for “impartial and imperative” investigation in the case.

The fresh affidavit is expected to be heard by the Supreme Court today.

Palghar lynching like mistakes will not happen in our government: Eknath Shinde

Days after taking oath as Maharashtra chief minister, Eknath Shinde in an interview to Republic TV had revealed that some rebels had tried to correct the MVA (Maha Vikas Aghadi) government’s approach towards the Palghar lynching case but in vain.

“We tried to correct the mistakes. But we were not successful. But now, such mistakes will not happen in our government,” Shinde had said.

2020 Palghar lynching case

On 16 April, 2020, three men – two sadhus and their driver – were lynched by a mob in Palghar district of Maharashtra after allegedly suspecting them to be child-kidnappers and organ harvesters.

The three were driving to a funeral in Gujarat’s Surat when a group of villagers in Gadchinchle, a tribal village in a remote part of Palghar, stopped their car and attacked them with stones, logs and axes.

According to reports, Mahant Kalpavruksha Giri (70) and Sushilgiri Maharaj (35), who stayed in an ashram in Kandivali, decided to go to Surat to attend a funeral. They hired a car which was driven by Nilesh Yelgade (30). To avoid being stopped on their journey, the three took the back roads of Palghar district to enter Gujarat rather than use the Mumbai-Gujarat highway. They were, however, stopped by a sentry of the forest department close to Gadchinchle village. While they were speaking with the sentry, the three were accosted by a vigilante group and assaulted.

On that night, station house officer of Kasa police station, Hemraj Gawande had received a call around 9:30 pm. On the call, Abhijeet Kadam, a forest guard, had said that he just received information from his colleague that residents of the nearby Gadchinchale village had stopped an Eeco car and were assaulting the passengers and driver.

Superintendent of police, State Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Maruti Jagtap said, “The lynching of the three was purely an outcome of the strong rumours, because there was no past incident of child lifting or anything else.”

The cop had further said that a meeting was even held at the Kasa police station a few days before the incident (to refute the rumours).”

Few days after the incident, the Maharashtra CID took over the case and arrested 251 adults and 15 minors. Three charge sheets were filed against 222 of them. At least 196 accused have secured bail from the Thane sessions court or the Bombay High Court.

With inputs from agencies

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