Maoists organisations were recruiting students from New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University and Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has claimed in the draft charges presented to the court in the Elgar Parishad-Koregaon Bhima case.
“The accused recruited students from various universities, including the Jawaharlal Nehru University and Tata Institute of Social Science for commission of terrorist activity,” according to the draft charges submitted to Special Judge DE Kothalikar, who presides over the NIA court in Mumbai.
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The Elgar Parishad case relates to the congregation in Shaniwarwada in Pune city during which inflammatory speeches made on December 31, 2017, which, the investigative agencies claimed, triggered violence and caste-clashes on January 1, 2018, near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial located in Shirur tehsil in Pune.
An altercation between two groups near the memorial when at a commemorative event – organized by Bhima Koregaon Shaurya Din Prerna Abhiyan -to mark the bicentenary of the Anglo-Maratha war at Bhima Koregaon in which the Mahar caste soldiers of Bombay Native Infantry of East India Company defeated the Peshwas. One youth was killed in the incident. Several vehicles and public property were damaged. This was followed by two days of agitation.
When the incident took place, the erstwhile BJP-Shiv Sena saffron alliance government was in power - and then Chief Minister and Home Minister Devendra Fadnavis ordered a probe by the Pune police, which formed an SIT. However, after the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi comprising Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress came to power, the Centre asked the NIA to take over the case amid opposition by the state.