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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Telugu actress death: SC upholds jail for paramour, directs him to surrender
New Delhi (PTI): Ruling out strangulation and rape, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the two-year jail term of a man challenging his conviction for abetting the suicide of Telugu actress Pratyusha in 2002, and directed him to surrender within four weeks.
Pratyusha died in Hyderabad on February 24, 2002.
The gist of the case against Gudipalli Siddhartha Reddy, according to the remand report, is that he and Pratyusha were in love for six years.
While the relation was acceptable to Pratyusha's mother, Reddy's mother did not agree to the alliance on account of which both of them decided to commit suicide.
On February 23, 2002, both of them went in a car, purchased a pesticide bottle, mixed it in coke and consumed it. However, wisdom prevailed over them and they decided that they should not die.
They drove to Care Hospital in Hyderabad. In spite of the medical care, Pratyusha died while Reddy survived.
A bench comprising justices Rajesh Bindal and Manmohan also dismissed the plea filed by P Sarojini Devi, Pratyusha's mother, who alleged foul play in the death.
"This court holds that the accused's conduct in entering into and acting upon the suicide pact falls squarely within all the three situations envisaged in Section 107 (Abetment) of the IPC. His participation directly facilitated the deceased's suicide. "Notably, it is not his defence that the deceased was the dominant personality who pressured him into the pact. His culpability therefore stands established," the bench said.
The top court said the allegation of homicidal death by manual strangulation is wholly unsustainable.
"A wealth of ocular and medical evidence points to poisoning. The materials on record, when examined holistically, leave no room for doubt that the deceased died due to consumption of organophosphate poison, specifically Nuvacron...
"Consequently, the convergence of multiple independent expert opinions lends overwhelming credibility to the conclusion that the deceased died of poisoning," the bench said.
The top court also slammed Dr Muni Swamy, who conducted post-mortem of the actress, and said even though there was a doctor on duty on February 25, 2002, he came to the mortuary on his own and did the autopsy.
The bench said it was surprising as Dr Swamy was neither on duty at the mortuary nor on call duty as professor.
"The premature and erroneous opinion of Dr. Muni Swamy unleashed a wave of public controversy. Media reports amplified his conclusions, leading to widespread suspicion of investigators and calls for immediate action against alleged perpetrators.
"This demonstrates how a single erroneous report, when publicised prematurely, can distort public perception and derail the course of justice," the bench said.
In 2011, the Andhra Pradesh High Court reduced the jail sentence of Reddy, who was convicted for her death, to two years from the five years earlier awarded.
The trial court had on February 23, 2004, sentenced Reddy to five years' imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 5,000 on charges of abetment of suicide. It had also awarded him one more year of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1,000 for attempting suicide.
