Milind Ghatwai - Madhya Pradesh violence: Police report names RSS leader, ‘so cases couldn’t be filed’
A FOUR-PAGE report
prepared by Petlawad police on last month’s communal tension in the town
accuses RSS zila sah karyawah Akash Chouhan and his father Mukut of trying to
“polarise Hindu voters” to win the upcoming Petlawad nagar panchayat elections.“They want to cause
communal violence and win the election by polarising Hindu voters. By their
untiring efforts, the police foiled their attempts to cause violence,” says the
report, signed by subdivisional police officer Rakesh Vyas and submitted to
Jhabua SP Sanjay Tiwari.
Blaming the Chouhans
for the communal tension in Petlawad from October 12 to 14, and for other
instances, the report adds that they could not register the cases “from [an]
administrative point of view”, “due to their [the Chouhans’] RSS background”. Says the confidential
report, “Uprokta sabhi ghatnaon me apradh panjibadhha hona the. Lekin inki RSS
prushtha bhoomi ke karan prashashanik drushtikon se aparadh panjibaddha nahin
kiye ja sake [In all these incidents, criminal cases were to be filed. But due to their RSS background and administrative point of view, criminal
cases could not be filed].”
The report adds that
quick police action prevented riots, and that “95 per cent of public” have
backed it. SP Tiwari denied
knowledge of the report against Chouhan. However, he admitted that the RSS
functionary was an accused in the attack on SDOP Vyas’s vehicle on October 13. Quoting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s
statement against cow vigilantes, the police report also accuses 28-year-old
Chouhan of running an organised gang of 100-150 whose members move on
motorbikes extorting “entry (money)” from drivers of vehicles carrying cattle,
threatening to report the matter to the police if turned away.
Petlawad had seen
communal tension on October 12 when a tazia procession was made to change its
route twice on Muharram, after which nearly a dozen RSS functionaries,
including Mukut Chouhan, a former district-level Sangh functionary, were either
arrested or detained as a preventive measure. The RSS then called a bandh in
protest against the arrests and to seek action against SDPO Vyas.
Later, Vyas and
Petlawad Police Station in-charge Karnisingh Shaktawat were transferred under
Sangh pressure. Vyas has been attached to the office of IG (Indore) and
Shaktawat moved to Jhabua.
The police report says
submissions had been made before too on activities of Chouhan leading to
possible communal incidents in areas under Petlawad and Thandla police
stations. “The latest incident vindicates the previous warnings.”
RSS Dhar prachar
pramukh Lalit Kothari said that since Chouhan was a Sangh functionary, he was
“naturally involved in activities like the cow protection campaign”. He added,
“No criminal case has been filed so far against Akash. I am not aware of the
police report.”
Speaking about the
attack on SDPO Vyas’s vehicle, the Congress’s Ratlam-Jhabua Lok Sabha MP
Kantilal Bhuria said, “Police have become inactive, fearing action against
them.” Denying the charges
against him, Chouhan accused Vyas of “an anti-RSS mindset” and accused him and
other police officials of collecting Rs 5,000 each to let vehicles pass through
their jurisdiction. He claimed the SDOP had prepared a “target list of 20-22
activists who he wanted to somehow fix. He insulted them deliberately, made
them sit in the thana for hours and then arrested some on fabricated charges”.
According to Chouhan,
police were angry with RSS activists because most of them were involved in cow
protection and their campaign had virtually stopped the money they earned by
allowing illegal transportation of cattle. Incidentally, the
police report says, BJP legislators Nagar Singh Chouhan (Alirajpur) and Madhav
Singh Davar (Jobat) were also at the receiving end of Chouhan’s cow protection
campaign, and that the Alirajpur MLA had to intervene to recover his vehicle
after it was stopped two times.
Nagar Singh Chouhan admitted this, but said he
had not named any individual. “It’s an old case,” he added, disconnecting the
phone. Davar said he would call back, but did not. The report cites
several instances to show how Akash Chouhan and his father were trying to
incite tension. On May 27, it says, carcasses of cattle that had died in an
accident were paraded in Petlawad town by activists led by the two. The report
says the carcasses were forcibly taken away from police.
It also says Chouhan
tried to vitiate communal harmony after a Milad-un-Nabi procession on December
24, 2015, and that he and his father “misbehaved” with sub-inspector Vinod
Saingh Baghel, who was in-charge of Petlawad Police Station (April 9), and with
the sub-divisional magistrate of Mandloi over graveyard land in July 2015. In
September 2012, the report says, Chouhan made then in-charge of Petlawad PS
Satish Samadhiya apologise for removing vehicles during a procession taken out
on Dol Gyaras. The report says
Chouhan had sought an arms licence but police had refused to give clearance,
citing his activities and instances of misbehavour with police officials.
see also
In the centre of the counter revolution stood the judiciary. Unlike administrative acts, which rest on considerations of convenience and expediency, judicial decisions rest on law, that is on right and wrong, and they always enjoy the limelight of publicity. Law is perhaps the most pernicious of all weapons in political struggles, precisely because of the halo that surrounds the concepts of right and justice.. Franz Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism p 27
The law of killing: a brief history of Indian fascism
The law of killing: a brief history of Indian fascism
RSS men attacked us, police forced us to forego legal action, say Sonepat Dalits
Bharat Bhushan - RSS chief Golwalkar threatened to kill Gandhi - 1947 CID report
Bharat Bhushan: BJP icon SP Mookerjee complicit in raising funds for defending Gandhi's assassins
Bharat Bhushan: BJP icon SP Mookerjee complicit in raising funds for defending Gandhi's assassins
The full, 11,350-word text of Neha Dixit's five-part investigation "Operation #BabyLift" on how the Sangh Parivar flouted every Indian and international law on child right to traffic 31 young tribal girls from Assam to Punjab and Gujarat to ‘Hinduise’ them.
