n a shocking first in Maharashtra's history, a mob attacked a police station last week, assaulted two policemen, dragged one of them out, paraded him with a saffrom flag and made him chant, 'Jai Bhavani, Jai Shivaji.'
In an exclusive interview, District Superintendent of Police Dr Dnyaneshwar Chavan tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com what really happened.
IMAGE: A video grab of a mob assaulting Assistant Sub Inspector Yunus Shaikh of the Pangaon police station, Latur, Maharashtra.
District Superintendent of Police Dr Dnyaneshwar Chavan, left, below, is in the eye of a storm.
Last Friday, February 19, two policemen under his charge, Assistant Sub Inspector Yunus Shaikh and Head Constable K Awaskar of the Pangaon police station were attacked by a mob inside the police station.
Shaikh was then forcibly taken to the spot, saffron flag in hand, and forced to chant 'Jai Bhavani, Jai Shivaji' where, the previous night (February 18), Awaskar and he had prevented a mob from erecting a saffron flag near a mosque in the communally sensitive Ambedkar Chowk.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis tweeted on Wednesday, February 24, that he has asked state Director General of Police Pravin Dixit and Minister of State for Home (Rural) Ram Shinde to travel to Latur and investigate the incident.
This is what DSP Chavan said when asked if the policemen in Pangaon felt insecure and unsafe: "This is, after all, a numbers game. When you are smaller in number compared to those who you face being larger in number... definitely (there is fear)..."
How many accused have you arrested in the attack on ASI Shaikh?
16 people have been arrested till now.
How many people have been registered as accused in the case according to the FIR (first information report)?
65.
By when will you arrest the rest?
Definitely, we have been making efforts to arrest the rest. They are absconding. They are not in the village (Renapur) as well as at their relatives' houses.
They may have left the district. Their mobile phones are also switched off. We will arrest them 100 per cent.
Could you tell us what exactly happened on the day of the attack and the previous night when ASI Shaikh and Head Constable Awaskar stopped people from erecting a saffron flag near Ambedkar Chowk, close to a mosque?
The gathering had plans to dig up the road and erect a (saffron) flag at the spot about which our officers came to know.
On that night there were two officers on duty. Yunus Shaikh was not alone. Awaskar was also there. These two along with two other policemen went to the spot in a jeep and convinced them not to erect the flag there.
They (the gathering which wanted to erect a flag) then went away with their flag at around 1.30 am. Our jeep maintained a vigil at the spot till 3.30 am.
Later, at around 8.30 am, the next morning, some 8 to 10 people came to the police station and threatened the officers there with a bandh and other consequences.
In another 15, 20 minutes, a big mob gathered outside the police station and seeing these two policemen inside the police station (Shaikh and Awaskar) the mob attacked them.
Both suffered head injuries as well as swelling of their hands and legs in this attack.
In the melee, Awaskar managed to escape, but the mob caught hold of the other police officer (Shaikh) and took him to the spot where they had asked the mob the previous night not to erect the flag.
Were these two officers asked by by their superiors to stop anybody from erecting flags at Ambedkar Chowk?
Listen my dear friend; This is our job to stop this nonsense.
How can we allow people erecting flags at any place that they want?
Once they erect such flags they refuse to remove it, leading to tensions in the area.
Once a saffron flag gets erected during one jayanti (birth anniversaries of historic figures), some people come and erect a blue flag on some other jayanti, and then again you have some people erecting a green flag.
This is how our society is evolving right now. People think they have done a great job when they erect such flags.
Why have you not added Yunus Shaikh as a complainant when it was he who was attacked and paraded by the mob asking him to raise slogans? Why make Awaskar the complainant?
Because of the attack on him (Shaikh), he was very nervous. He was not in a condition to give a statement properly.
He was conscious, but he was under mental trauma. So, we registered a complaint from Awaskar.
Is Yunus Shaikh stable now?
Yes, Shaikh and Awaskar, both are stable now.
Will you then add Yunus Shaikh as a complainant now?
Sir, you have started to change the CrPC (Criminal Procedure Code) now. For one crime there is always one FIR registered and then investigations are done.
So you are saying that the CPC doesn't allow you to name two complainants for an attack like this.
No. Only one FIR is filed in one incident.
Yunus Shaikh's son claims this will weaken the case against the rioters...
He must have said this to you. When I met him, when the IG (Inspector General of Police) met him, nothing of this sort has come to light.
If there are 10 people injured in a crime, we don't take complaints from all 10 people.
But here there were just two people who were attacked. And that too two policemen, who were attacked by the mob who entered a police station and dragged them out, paraded them in full public view.
Yunus Shaikh has claimed that the police did not help him when he had asked for reinforcements, informing them that a mob of over 100 people had attacked the police station.
The attack took place around 8.30 am and the reinforcements came only at 10.30 by when the assault was over and rioters had fled.
It is correct that the incident (the attack on the police station and the police officers; not once did Chavan refer to it as an 'attack'; he stuck to 'incident') started at 8.30 and he (Shaikh) informed about it (for additional police force) and three of our employees (policemen) were on their way at around 9 am to the police station, but the injured constable (Awaskar) met them on the way and informed them that just three policemen were not enough because it was a huge crowd and asked them to come back with a bigger force so that they (policemen in strength) could control them.
The distance between our police station (from where the reinforcements took off in a jeep) and the chowki (the police station where the attack occurred) is about 16 km. Because of bad roads any vehicle easily takes about 25 minutes to cover this distance.
Did Yunus Shaikh, when he called for help, not say that it was a huge mob?
When told that (informed by Yunus) it was a 100-plus mob and given that it was morning time and policemen were amid their shift (night to morning when they change their duties) change and also there were about 8 such processions organised that day (February 19, Shiv Jayanti) our force was distributed for duty at these places too.
Another rally was supposed to cross its way from around a mosque at 9 or 9.15 am. For that too we had to requisition policemen. There were about 105 processions across Latur district that day.
Isn't this the first time in Maharashtra that a policeman was dragged out by a mob from inside a police station and then attacked?
A policeman was paraded in full public view, forced to carry a saffron flag and chant 'Jai Bhavani, Jai Shivaji'.
Isn't this a huge failure on the part of the Latur police?
Also, such instances were not happening at all the 105 places you mentioned. Only Yunus Shaikh sent you a SoS, but still the police couldn't reach the spot in time with adequate force.
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