Bhopal: Mashal Rally tomorrow to protest Pune caste violence

Bhopal: Various Dalit organisations in the city have decided to protest against the Maharashtra caste violence. Clashes between dalit groups and supporters of right-wing Hindu organisations during the 200th anniversary celebrations of the Bhima-Koregaon battle in Pune district had left a man dead on Monday.

Bahujan Sangharsh Dal has planned to take out a ‘Mashal Rally’on Friday and they will hand over a memorandum, addressed to the President, to the collector. The rally will also protest Anant Kumar Hegde’s remark on the Constitution.

Vice president of Bhujan Sangharsh Siddharth More told Free Press that their ‘Mashal Rally’ will start from Awantibai Square and end at Jaiyanti Maidan, 2nd Bus Stop at 6pm. “ our march is to protest the violence at the 200th anniversary celebrations of the Koregaon-Bhima battle and also remake made by Hegde on the Constitution,” he said.

Alleging that sinister design of BJP, RSS and other right wing organisations were behind the violence, More said that Maharashtra government is hand-in-glove with these organisations trying to divide the Indian society in the name of caste and religion. Still the culprits have not been arrested even after lodging of FIR, he added.

“We protested against the violence by taking out a Mashal march from Ambedkar Nagar to Raj Bhawan on Tuesday evening and had handed over a memorandum, to the Governor. If the government of Maharashtra doesn’t take strict actions against the culprits, we will do Jan Andolan (mass movement) in MP. But our protest will be silent. It won’t harm any persons,” said Mohan Lal Patil, state chief of Republican Party of India.

We have been celebrating the occasion for last many years but no violence occurred earlier, but now some local casteist organisations are involved in the violence as they hate Dalits and don’t want to see their progress, said Patil.

Ajay Sahare, state coordinator of Dr Ambedkar Social Justice Centre, MP said that they took out a rally against the violence on Tuesday along with some other organisations in the city. If violence doesn’t stop we will take out another rally in a symbolic way (without harming anyone), said Sahare.