Mumbai: The Maharashtra government, in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, transferred the investigation into the Palghar mob lynching case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was in the opposition when the lynching took place in April 2020, had attacked the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government for “inept handling” of the law-and-order situation and demanded a CBI probe.
The horrific incident took place on April 16, 2020, when two sadhus (seers) and their driver were dragged out of their vehicle outside Gadchinchale village, 110 kilometres from Palghar, and beaten to death by a mob that reportedly thought they were child-kidnappers. The incident occurred when the victims were on their way from Mumbai to Surat to attend a funeral. The BJP had alleged that the lynching had happened in the presence of police personnel.
The BJP had cornered the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government for its failure to protect “Hindu seers” and demanded that the probe be handed over to the CBI. Like other BJP leaders, the then leader of the opposition Pravin Darekar had claimed that the government was “suppressing the voice of Hindutva”. The MVA government also faced flak on social media, and under fire, the Thackeray government had on April 20 transferred the case to the state crime investigation department (CID).
Immediately after the incident, Thackeray had publicly announced that “a few people” were deliberately giving the incident a religious colour, and warned of action against such rabble-rousing. The then chief minister had even spoken to Union home minister Amit Shah and informed him that there was no religious angle to the lynching, and that it had happened because of a misunderstanding.
“Even Amit Shah had admitted this,” he had said. “I have requested him to take strict action against people fanning passions and trying to engineer communal tension using social media. We too are taking action against the bid to arouse religious sentiments using the incident.”
The CID arrested around 250 people and detained 15 minors for their involvement in the crime and filed at least three chargesheets in the case. 196 accused were released on bail later. The government had also suspended a few police officers for their mishandling of the case.
The mob lynching was one of the first cases in which the BJP attacked the MVA government, which was five months old then. Anil Deshmukh, home minister in the Thackeray government at the time, had said that there were deliberate attempts on social media to instigate people.
Reacting to the state government’s decision to hand over the probe to the CBI, BJP leader Ram Kadam said, “The Thackeray government was not in favour of doing justice to the seers who were brutally killed during its regime. Despite seers from across the country taking to the streets to demand the transfer of the case to the CBI, the Thackeray government remained silent. With the change in the government, the Shinde-Fadnavis government has decided to do so. Our government is committed to giving justice to the deceased seers.”
Kadam, who claimed the “Hindu community” was “happy with the decision”, had in November 2020 announced that he would take out a protest rally from Mumbai to the spot of the lynching in Palghar. He was however detained by the police.