‘No Religious Angle’, State Charge Sheets Filed Against 250 Accused In Palghar Sadhu Lynching Case

In a significant development in the Palghar lynching case, the Maharashtra Police's CID on Wednesday (15 July) filed two separate charge sheets totalling around 12,000 pages, naming over a whopping 250-plus accused, an official said.

"Yes, the charge sheets have been filed before the Palghar Sessions Court. Each runs into some 6,000-pages and have named 126 accused each," Special Public Prosecutor Satish Maneshinde told IANS.

Among other things, the charge sheets says that the mob lynching incident was the outcome of rumour-mongering and there was no religious angle to the crime.

The charge sheets signify the end of the investigations into the sensational case in which two sadhus and their driver were lynched near Gadchinchale village in the district.

However, police sources said the probe will still continue into other related aspects of the triple crime by a mob on the night of April 16, even as the first charge sheets were filed within the 90-day period.

On that night, Kalpavrikshagiri Maharaj, 70, his assistant Sushilgiri Maharaj, 35, of the Juna Akhada, and their driver Nilesh Telgade, 30, were waylaid when they were en route from Mumbai to Gujarat's Surat for a funeral during the lockdown.

Mistaking them to be robbers or kidnappers, a huge mob pounced on them and attacked them with stones, sticks, sickles. The trio later succumbed to ther grievous injuries.

The Wednesday developments came after Additional Sessions Judge D.N. Keluskar rejected the bail pleas by 25 accused in the case on Tuesday.

Strongly opposing the bail plea, Maneshinde said that the prosecution had gathered "multiple evidences against the accused", including videos, mobile Call Data Records, CCTV evidence recorded by the Forest Department checkpost, bloodstains and possible fingerprints and other technical evidence against the accused.

He said the investigations of the evidence proved the complicity of the accused who were present at the spot during the incident.

Later, more than 150 people, including minors, were arrested and the matter was handed over to the CID, as the incident created a nationwide political furore.

This news has been published via Syndicate feed. Only the headline is changed.