The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday filed a second supplementary chargesheet in the Bhima-Koregaon violence case against Father Stan Swamy, Prof Anand Teltumbde, Prof. Hany Babu, Gautam Navlakha,and members of the cultural group Kabir Kala Manch — Jyoti Jagtap, Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor.
Father Stan Swamy, 83, a Jesuit priest and activist working with tribal people, was arrested on Thursday by the NIA Ranchi from his house and has been sent to judicial custody till October 23. He will be lodged in Taloja Central jail in Mumbai with the other co-accused.
There is no official record of those named in the chargesheet. The special public prosecutor told The Hindu: “The NIA has filed the chargesheet against seven accused including Stan Swamy who was arrested yesterday.”
The first chargesheet was filed in November 2018 against Sudhir Dhawale, an activist, Surendra Gadling, a criminal lawyer practising in Nagpur, Dr. Shoma Sen, a professor and Head of Department of English at Nagpur University, activists Rona Wilson and Mahesh Raut.
In February 2019, the central agency filed their first supplementary chargesheet against poet Varavara Rao, lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, activists Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves. It is alleged that all accused are active members of a banned Maoist group.
The two chargesheets have no mention of Hindutva leaders Milind Ekbote, executive president of an outfit called “Samastha Hindu Aghadi” and Sambhaji Bhide ‘Guruji’, who heads the Shiv Pratishthan Hindustan. Their names were registered on the basis of an eye witness that they had incited violence against the Dalit congregation.
The NIA took over the investigation from the Pune police on January 2020. All accused are booked for allegedly delivering inflammatory speeches at the Elgar Parishad conclave at Shaniwar Wada in Pune on December 31, 2017, which triggered violence at Bhima Koregaon war memorial the next day.