Maha seeks legal opinion; SIT likely
MUMBAI/NEWDELHI:The Shiv Senaled coalition government in Maharashtra has sought a legal opinion on the Centre’s move to hand over the two-year-old Bhima Koregaon violence case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), even as energy minister Nitin Raut said on Saturday the state may not cooperate with the central agency, and conduct its own probe into the matter.
“We have sought legal advice on the matter before handing the case to the NIA. The advocate general (Ashutosh Kumbhkoni) has been asked to give legal opinion based on which we will decide our next step,” Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh told Hindustan Times.
Deshmukh objected to the Centre’s “unilateral” decision to transfer the case to the federal agency and alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government “wants to save” some people. “They may have been afraid that some BJP people may get trapped in the probe and thus the case was handed over to NIA,” he said.
Raut told HT that the Maharashtra government will take a call on the matter at the next cabinet meeting. “The law and order is with us. We will take a decision in the next cabinet meeting. We may not cooperate with the NIA and go ahead and launch a probe by the special investigation team (SIT) of Maharashtra,” he added.
Raut said BJP has a “grudge” against those who organised the “Elgar Parishad” in Pune on December 31, 2017. “How can anyone call retired justices BG KolsePatil and PB Sawant, who were the main organisers, as urban Naxals? If you criticise the government in a speech or in an article, you become Naxals for them (BJP). They are taking country towards autocracy,” he added.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress have stepped up their attack on the Centre over the issue. NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Saturday alleged that the Centre transferred the probe to the NIA fearing that a fresh investigation by the state would “expose dubious actions” of the previous BJP-led government. He also asked the state government to probe “behavior” of the police officers who probed the case.
Former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who held the home portfolio when the incident took place, said the state government was trying to mislead people about the probe for vote bank politics. “Attempts are being made to lower the morale of the police and put them under pressure,” he said.