Times
of India: Aurangabad: Wednesday, 02 December 2015.
The
Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court on Tuesday rejected anticipatory bail
plea of five Shiv Sena members who allegedly assaulted RTI activist Mallikarjun
Bhaikatti on the premises of Shahu College, which is run by Shiv Chhatrapati
Shikshan Sanstha, on October 30.
"The
five accused, including Abhay Salunke, Dhanraj Sathe, Balaji Jadhav, Hari
Bhagat and Sunil Saudakar, had earlier approached the Latur sessions court on
November 16. The sessions court rejected their anticipatory bail plea.
Following which, they approached the high court," said lawyer Sudarshan
Salunke, who represented the accused.
After hearing
the arguments, Justice Indira Jain rejected the bail plea of the five accused,
Salunke said, adding that the prosecution had stressed the need of custodial
interrogation and test identification parade of the suspects.
Bhaikatti was
assaulted after he sought information, under the Right to Information (RTI)
Act, about unauthorized construction that the members of the Sanstha were
indulging in. Following the attack, the Latur rural police had arrested
institution's senior member Shivaji Bhosale.
Bhosale was
remanded to two-day police custody and subsequently spent 15 days in prison
under judicial remand before being released on bail. "In his confessional
statement, Bhosale had named Salunke, Sathe, Jadhav, Bhagat and Saudakar as the
persons who led a group of about 25 people to assault Bhaikatti," said
assistant public prosecutors Srinivas Ganachari and A B Kale.
Bhaikatti had
said in his statement that around 11am on October 30, he got a call from a
person identifying himself as Dhanraj Sathe, who said he wanted to felicitate
him for exposing Shahu College though the RTI query. Later, a group of people,
sporting saffron scarves around their necks, came in an SUV carrying Shiv Sena
emblem. They garlanded Bhaikatti before assaulting him in front of his house.
They then
dragged Bhaikatti into their SUV and brought him to Shahu junior college. They
assaulted him with belts and iron rods. Around that time, Bhosale rang the
school bell prompting students to come out. The students were made to clap even
as Bhaikatti was being beaten up. Bhosale too had allegedly thrashed him badly
while showering abuses for making RTI query. The suspects again picked him up
and after driving for at least half-an-hour pushed him out of the car in front
of the tehsil office, the prosecution said.
The accused,
who were suspended from Shiv Sena soon after the incident, have been booked
under various sections of the IPC, including 307 (attempt to murder), 326
(Voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or mean), 365
(Kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine
person), 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 109 (abetment), 325 (voluntarily causing
grievous hurt), 326 (Voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or
means), 143 (unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting), 148 (Rioting, armed with deadly
weapon) and 149 (unlawful assembly).
The
investigation officer, inspector Kalyan Supekar of Latur rural police was also
present in the court.
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