Three policemen sacked in Palghar mob lynching case

The Maharashtra government has sacked three policemen in connection with the mob lynching incident in Palghar district in which two sadhus and their driver were killed.

The three cops are assistant police inspector Anandrao Kale has been served with dismissal orders while his colleagues, assistant police sub inspector Ravi Salunkhe and constable Naresh Dhodi.

While Kale is dismissed from service, Salunke and Dhodi would compulsorily retire.

All of them were under suspension – and were sacked after a departmental inquiry.

Kale was in-charge of the Kasa police station where the incident took place.

The dismissal and retirement orders were issued late on Saturday by Konkan Range’s special inspector general of police Niket Kaushik.

Two sadhus, Kalpavriksha Giri Maharaj (70 years), Sushil Giri Maharaj (35) and their driver Nilesh Telgade (30), were brutally lynched to death on the night of 16 April in the Gadchinchale village in Dahanu tehsil of Palghar district, nearly 120 km from downtown Mumbai.

For four days before the incident, there were rumours that robbers had come to the village to steal kidneys particularly of children and sell them in the black market. This led to the villagers mounting a round-the-clock vigil. The sadhus and their driver were attacked by a group of nearly 500 villagers suspected them to be kidnappers.

The two Nashik-based sadhus belonged to the Varanasi-headquartered Shri Panch Dashnam Juna Akhara, the biggest order of sadhus in India.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government came under fierce attack from the BJP after the incident.

The Maharashtra government transferred the investigations from the Palghar police to the Pune-headquartered State-CID.

In a major reshuffle after the incident, in April-May, two policemen Sudhir Katare and Santosh Mukne were suspended by the then Palghar superintendent of police Gaurav Singh while another 35 police personnel of Kasa Police Station were transferred to other parts of the district.

Later, during his visit to the Gadchinchale village in Kasa – where the lynchings took place – home minister Anil Deshmukh had sent Singh compulsory leave and he awaits a posting till now.

The State-CID has resulted in three chargesheets filed against a total of 126 accused before the Dahanu magistrate court, besides 11 juveniles and 28 others against whom the investigations are still underway.

The accused have been booked under various sections of Indian Penal Code, Disaster Management Act, Epidemic Diseases Act, Maharashtra Police Act, Maharashtra Damage to Public Property (Amendment) Act with charges pertaining to murder, attempt to murder, armed rioting, using criminal force to prevent a public servant from discharging his duties.