Pune: The Pune City Police finally gave permission for the Elgar Parishad to be organised at Ganesh Kala Krida Manch auditorium at Swargate on January 30, 2021. The permission for this event – earlier scheduled on December 31, 2020 – was denied then in view of the law and order situation in and around the city.
The Lokshasan Andolan Samiti had applied for permission to conduct the Elgar Parishad on December 31 from 2pm to 7pm. Justice B G Kolse Patil (Retired) had requested that the Pune City Police should grant permission for the event.
However, the Brahman Mahasangh had opposed the event and demanded that Pune City Police deny permission to the event. Pune Police considered all the possibilities and in view of the threat of mutant COVID19 outbreak in the city, denied the permission for the event.
Senior Police Inspector Balasaheb Kopnar from Swargate police station told media persons that conditional permission has been granted for the event. “In view of the prevalent COVID19 outbreak and the guidelines issued by the state government, we have allowed only 200 persons to attend the event.
A FIR has been registered in which it is alleged that the Elgaar Parishad on December 31, 2017 – on the eve of the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon – was organised by banned Naxalite groups. A day after the Elgar Parishad, violence was reported at Koregaon Bhima near Shikrapur. Police claim that speeches made at Elgaar Parishad were at least partly responsible for instigating violence that took place on January 1, 2018.
In June 2018, the Pune police had arrested five activists and lawyers from Pune, Nagpur and Delhi, claiming that they had links to banned Naxalite organization, CPI(Maoist) and had played a role in organizing the Elgaar Parishad. The NIA has now taken over investigation in these cases.