Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry will call IPS officer Vishwas Nangare Patil to depose as a witness in the case, the panel’s lawyer has said. The two-member commission, headed by retired Justice J N Patel, is probing the causes of the Koregaon Bhima violence of January 1, 2018, in which one person died and several others were injured.
Nangare Patil is currently the joint commissioner of police (law and order), Mumbai police. He was the special inspector general of police, Kolhapur Range, at the time the violence took place in Pune rural, which came under his jurisdiction.
The commission’s lawyer, Aashish Satpute, in an application filed on Friday, said, “It is necessary to summon Vishwas Nangare Patil, IPS, to bring forward true and correct facts, intelligence inputs, minutes of meetings including various wireless messages, received by the office of SPL, IGP Kolhapur, during the relevant period when he was holding the charge…”
Retired Justice Patel said the commission will be calling him as a witness and asked state’s lawyer Shishir Hiray to reply and file Nangare Patil’s affidavit.
Meanwhile, IPS officer Rashmi Shukla appeared before the commission on Friday as a witness. Shukla was the commissioner of Pune city police at the time of Koregaon Bhima violence and is currently posted in Hyderabad as the Additional Director General of CRPF (South Zone).
In her affidavit submitted before the panel, Shukla has attached various letters from the Maharashtra state intelligence department (SID) regarding the Elgaar Parishad held in the Pune city police jurisdiction at Shaniwar Wada in Pune on December 31, 2017, ahead of the 200th anniversary of the Koregaon Bhima battle.
Advocate B G Bansode cross examined Shukla on two FIRs filed regarding Elgaar Parishad — one by Akshay Bikkad on January 3, 2018 and other by Tushar Damgude on January 8, 2018. Bansode also questioned Shukla on the FIR filed against Hindutva activists Milind Ekbote and Sambhaji Bhide besides other information.
Lawyers seek inquiry into audio clip
Lawyers B G Bansode, Kiran Channe and Rahul Makhare submitted an application before the commission seeking a probe into an audio clip, which purportedly dates back to January 1, 2018. The lawyers claim it was a mobile phone conversation between a police officer and a Shiv Sena office bearer held in a traffic jam while going to Pune from Aurangabad. The application was filed on behalf of a witness Ravindra Channe, who found the audio clip on social media. It is alleged that during the conversation, a police officer asked the Sena leader to “damage vehicles carrying blue flags”. Lawyers have sought forensic examination of the audio clip, stating that a police officer deputed on duty before the commission could be the same person in the audio file. When the matter was taken up before the panel, state’s lawyer said this police officer has nothing to do with the audio clip and that he was not posted in Pune at the time of Koregaon Bhima violence.