Mumbai, April 18: Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM) President Prakash Ambedkar on Wednesday alleged that the raids on Dalit activists in which the Maharashtra Police have seized electronic gadgets was intended to destroy evidences pertaining to the Koregaon-Bhima riots of January 1.

Meeting media persons here, he said that police have confiscated laptops and other materials which prove the link between Hindutva leader Sambhaji Bhide alias Bhide Guruji, who heads the right-wing organization Shiv Pratishthan.

Besides there was evidence of another right-wing leader Raosaheb Patil who had earlier appealed to kill Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Pune's Guardian Minister Girish Bapat, added Ambedkar, the grandson of the Architect of Indian Constitution, B.R. Ambedkar.

"All this evidence were submitted to Fadnavis in which Bhide's links with the Koregaon-Bhima riots are proved. However, the CM is misleading by claiming that yesterday's (Tuesday's) raids were connected to investigating Maoist supporters in urban centres," he said.

Ambedkar said he had asked Fadnavis to probe Patil, but nothing was done despite the death threats issued by him on his (Patil's) Facebook page, and said the raids in Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur and even New Delhi were "to recover the evidences" collected by the Dalit activists.

In a major swoop early on Tuesday, Pune police teams raided the homes and offices of over half a dozen Dalit activists and those involved with the Kabir Kala Manch, which had organized a Elgaar Conference in Pune on December 31.

The following day, January 1, caste riots erupted in Koregaon-Bhima caste riots which left one dead, and culminated in a Maharashtra shutdown on January 3 called by BBM.

Ambedkar said that the state government was threatening the Dalit community by these raids on the activists instead of arresting Bhide and said he would organize a siege of the Maharashtra Legislature during the upcoming monsoon session.

 

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ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.

“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.

The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.

Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.

There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.