Kolhapur (Maharashtra), July 17 – The ongoing anti-encroachment drive at the historic Vishalgad Fort here is fast snowballing into a political issue besides fueling tension among communities in a village nestled in the lush green hills.
Adding a fresh angle to the row, Yuvraj Sambhajiraje Chhatrapati, who is spearheading the campaign for the past four days, has claimed that a convicted terrorist and the co-founder of the Indian Mujahideen (IM), Yasin Bhatkal, had reportedly lived in the Vishalgad Fort vicinity, where there are chunks of minority population.
A former President nominated Rajya Sabha MP, Yuvraj Sambhajiraje Chhatrapati is the 13th descendent of the legendary Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and great-grandson of the revered Rajarshi Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj.
Interacting with the media, he said: “The chief conspirator of the German Bakery bomb blast (Pune, February 2010), Yasin Bhatkal, who is involved in over half a dozen other terror cases, had stayed in the Vishalgad area. He is a terrorist and the founder of IM… Such a person lived there…”
Incidentally, his father is the sitting Congress MP from Kolhapur, Chhatrapati Shrimant Shahu Maharaj, a highly-respected personality.
Taking strong cognisance of Yuvraj’s statement, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, and Education Minister Hasan Mushrif said the government would probe the issue thoroughly to find out when, why and how Bhatkal came to stay there.
On July 14, Yuvraj Sambhajiraj Chhatrapati had led a march to the Vishalgad Fort but even before he reached there, violence erupted with stone-pelting at a police team, damaging properties and leading to the arrest of 21 persons.
Around four to five dozen houses and shops, plus a mosque in the minority-dominated Gajapur village, around 4 km downhill from the fort, were targeted, resulting in tension as the police beefed up security.
The trigger for the violence was purportedly the stopping of a group of right-wing activists from Pune at the base of the hill given the prohibitory orders clamped in the region.
State Congress President Nana Patole and Working President M. Arif Naseem Khan have accused the government of attempting to give a communal colour to the encroachment drive to which it is not opposed.
In a letter to the CM and DGP Rashmi Shukla, Patole and Khan urged the ruling MahaYuti to desist from such political tactics ahead of the October Assembly elections, and demanded strong action against the rioters, assuring the terrified villagers of safety and security, compensation for their losses and normalising the situation there on priority.
“Under the pretext of encroachments in Vishalgad, homes of the minority community in Gajapur village were attacked, vandalised, set on fire, and the residents were assaulted. The encroachment case is sub-judice (in court), and the police were aware of the planned march to Vishalgad, yet adequate police protection was not provided. It is clear that the rioters were given a free hand to take the law into their own hands,” Khan said in the letter, and also during a meeting with the DGP.
MahaYuti ally Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Baba Siddique also condemned the violence targeting the minority community and urged CM Shinde, Fadnavis, and Ajit Pawar to order a fair probe into the matter.
AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi also slammed the MahaYuti government for the mob attack on the mosque and people from the minority community, saying they will reply through the ballot.
Fadnavis said the state government is working to bring peace in the Vishalgad Fort vicinity and also remove the illegal structures within the legal framework, not only there but from all the forts in the state.
Over 965 years old, the Vishalgad Fort was under various dynasties till it was conquered by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in 1659, and centuries later in 1998, it came under the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).