Sambhaji Bhide's name dropped from Bhima-Koregaon case: Who is the veteran right-wing leader?

The Maharashtra Police have dropped the name of controversial right-wing leader Sambhaji Bhide from the 2018 Bhima-Koregaon case. The police said in a report filed before the Maharashtra Human Rights Commission (MHRC) that Bhide was not found to have played any role in the violence. On 1 January, 2018, violence broke out near the Koregaon Bhima war memorial in Pune district. The war memorial commemorates the East India Company’s victory over the Peshwa’s forces in 1818. The memorial is revered by the Dalits as British forces also included members of the Dalit Mahar community. Pimpri Police in Pune district filed a case against Bhide and others under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and various sections of the IPC including attempt to murder as one person was killed in the caste clashes in 2018. Who is Sambhaji Bhide? The native of Sangli district in Maharashtra was once a full-time worker of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). According to a report by Mumbai Mirror, Bhide is M.Sc. in nuclear physics and a gold medalist. He was a professor of physics at Pune’s Fergusson College before he joined the RSS as a pracharak. He left RSS in the 1980s, and started his own organisation called Shiva Pratishthan Hindustan to spread the message of the life of Shivaji Maharaj. It is believed that Bhide continues to have deep links with the RSS and wields considerable clout within the government at the Centre. The Mumbai Mirror reported that in 2014, after then-Gujarat CM Narendra Modi launched his election campaign to become the prime minister he visited Bhide at his house in Sangli and sought his blessings by touching his feet. Later, at a public rally Modi declared: “I did not come to Sangli on my own, but I was given orders by Bhide Guruji to visit your city and here I am.” The 89-year-old Bhide is no stranger to controversy. In 2008, he had led the protests against Ashutosh Gowariker’s film “Jodhaa Akbar” and was booked for ransacking theatres and halting screenings of the movie. A year later, he sparked unrest in Sangli in Maharashtra over the depiction of an “artist’s impression of assassination of Adil Shah’s army commander Afzal Khan by Shivaji Maharaj”, as reported by Mumbai Mirror. In fact, the report said that many members of his political outfit have been accused in cases of beef-related violent clashes across Maharashtra. Why did his name come up in the Koregaon-Bhima violence case? Bhide, along with another right-wing leader Milind Ekbote, was booked on 2 January 2018, a day after the violence, under SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act and under various sections of the IPC including an attempt to murder as one person was killed in the clashes. Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM) leader Prakash Ambedkar had alleged that Bhide and Ekbote’s organisations were responsible for the caste clashes. Ambedkar has been at the forefront of the battle to get Bhide and Ekbote arrested for their role in the violence. Bhide, however, has maintained that he was not at the incident site on the day and was away to attend MLA Jayant Patil’s mother’s rituals. Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had also told the Assembly that there was no proof of the involvement of Bhide in connection with the violence. However, Bhide alleged that the roots of the riots lay in the ‘Yalgar Parishad’ (conference) organised by various groups on 31 December in Pune and demanded the arrest of Ambedkar instead. He also sought a brain-mapping test of all the concerned persons, including Ambedkar to unravel the truth behind the casteist disturbances.