Palghar lynching case: 208 new accused named, 50 arrested

The state Crime Investigation Department (CID) on Wednesday named 208 new accused in the April 16 Palghar lynching case and arrested 50 people.

The 50 arrested will be produced before the Dahanu court on Thursday, confirmed their lawyer Amrut Adhikari.

With this development, the total arrested in the case stand at 376 out of which 11 are minors. However, 28 accused and 9 minors have been released on bail as the CID in its chargesheet did not name their involvement in the lynching and hence sought default bail.

Meanwhile, the bail hearing of the 62 accused in the case will be heard by Special Sessions Judge PP Jadhav at Thane on Thursday, said Adhikari.

The killing of the two saffron-robed men and their driver in April this year had sparked off national outrage after video clips showed policemen heading to safety inside the police station and leaving the three men at the mercy of hundreds of people who suspected the three were thieves.

Kalpvrush Giri, 70, Sushil Giri, 35, and driver Nilesh Telgade, 30, were dragged out of their vehicle and thrashed by the mob in Gadhchinchale village, about 110 km from Palghar. The seers belonged to Varanasi-based Juna Akhara and were on their way to attend the last rites of their guru Mahant Shri Ram Giri in Surat.

Five months after Gaurav Singh, former superintendent of police (SP), Palghar, was sent on compulsory leave by state home minister Anil Deshmukh following the lynching incident, he has now been posted as a superintendent of the Maharashtra Police Academy, Nashik, by the state home ministry.

The state government in a reply to the Supreme Court to a petition seeking handing over the case to a central agency, had last Wednesday, mentioned that no dereliction of duty was found from Singh’s side and thus was given a clean chit.