Cover Story
Dalit activist now booked for waging war against state
Police claim radical Marathi editor Sudhir Dhawale was responsible for
putting up incendiary posters in Gondia on December 14; wife says he
was in Mumbai that night
Jyoti Punwani
Posted On Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 05:53:10 AM
The state upped the ante against Dalit activist and editor of Marathi
magazine Vidrohi, Sudhir Dhawale, booking him for waging war against
the state under section 121 of the Indian Penal Code. On January 2,
Dhawale was arrested on charges of sedition. The difference between
the two is that unlike sedition, waging war against state also has a
provision of death penalty.
Police alleges on the midnight of December 14-15, posters were put up
in Gondia district in connection with the 'Shaheed Saptah' or Martyrs'
Week observed by Naxalites in the area. An FIR was registered against
unknown persons. Dhawale has now been shown as an accused in that
case.
Sudhir Dhawale (right) at a protest outside CST last month to free Binayak Sen
After his arrest, the court had remanded Dhawale to police custody
till January 12, after which he was sent to Bhandara Jail. However, on
January 14, the police made him an accused in this FIR and asked for
custody again. After three days of questioning, he was sent back to
Bhandara Jail.
His wife Darshana counters that on December 14 Dhawale was in Mumbai
participating in the birthday celebrations of well-known Dalit Panther
Samadhan Navkar, Dalit Panther and now Mumbai president of Mumbai
Democratic Republican Party at Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh.
"This is the police's known modus operandi,'' said advocate Surendra
Gadling, Dhawale's lawyer. "I have handled about 60 cases where the
suspect, usually someone who is vocal against government policies, is
picked up in one particular case, then slapped with one case after the
other, so as to keep him inside for a long time.''
Meanwhile, the inquiry into Dhawale's arrest, ordered by Home Minister
R R Patil, after a delegation led by filmmaker Anand Patwardhan met
him, was indeed held by a DIG-rank officer. Only, the officer never
met Dhawale, claims Gadling.
Gondia Sub Divisional Police Officer Borate told earlier told this
newspaper that Dhawale had been named by one Bhimrao @ Bhanu Bhovate,
whom he described as a ``State Committee Naxalite leader'', arrested
recently in Gondia. Bhovate had reportedly told the police that he
had given his computer, which had Naxalite literature in it, to
Sudhir. Thus it was necessary to seize Dhawale's computer, said
Borate.
A well-known name in Dalit and Left circles, Dhawale was one of the
founders of the Republican Panther Jaatiya Antachi Chalwal (movement
for annihilation of caste), formed on December 6, 2007, Dr Ambedkar's
mahaparinirvan day, at Shivaji Park.
This group grew out of the anger of Dalit youth against the Ramabai
Nagar firing (1997) and the Khairlanji killings (2006). He joins a
growing list of men from Mumbai including Vernon Gonsalves, Arun
Ferreira, Shridhar Shrinivasan alias Vishnu who have been held for
their Naxalite connections.
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