BJP leader and ex-Minister Anil Bonde arrested over Amravati violence

NCP Minister Nawab Malik alleges a pre-planned conspiracy on part of the BJP to incite riots throughout Maharashtra

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Pune: The Maharashtra police on Monday arrested Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Maharashtra Minister Dr. Anil Bonde along with a few other party members in connection with the rioting in Amravati city last week. Police said that they are also on the lookout for BJP MLC and former minister from Amravati Praveen Pote, who is apparently ‘missing’ since the incidents of violence and vandalism on November 13. 

Maharashtra Minister for Minority Development and senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Malik accused the BJP of hatching a “pre-planned conspiracy” to foment rioting across Maharashtra.  

More than 70 persons have been arrested thus far and more than 25 First Information Report’s (FIRs) registered at four police stations in Amravati in connection with the violence and vandalism that occurred on November 12 and November 13. Officials said that the former BJP, State Agriculture Minister Anil Bonde and Pote were instrumental among others in calling for and organizing the BJP’s bandh on November 13. 

Stressing that there had been no ‘communal clashes’ in Amravati district, Malik alleged that Bonde had ‘conspired’ to instigate riots by distributing money and liquor to miscreants.  

Malik remarked “The BJP had called for a bandh on Saturday…it was a pre-planned conspiracy to ensure that the riots spread across Maharashtra riots but the State’s public ensured that it never spilled outside Amravati city. It is also emerging now that a large sum of money for the purpose of spreading the riots was transferred from Mumbai to Amravati…but the police had the situation well under control when the violence started there.” 

Malik denied media reports that an FIR had been lodged against an NCP corporator in Malegaon which had witnessed tensions on November 12. “The concerned person against whom the FIR has been lodged is Mufti Mohammad Ismail Abdul Khalique…who was formerly with the NCP, but after 2019 he joined the AIMIM,” clarified the NCP minister. 

Lashing out at the BJP, he said that when the saffron party had run out of all weapons to destabilize governments in non-BJP ruled states, it used riots as a weapon of last resort.  

“But Maharashtra’s public is well aware of the BJP’s designs and will never accept this ‘politics of conspiracy’…The BJP should understand that by merely throwing money, they can never uproot the Maharashtra government nor by misusing central agencies. This kind of negative politics will never take root in Maharashtra…our government runs on the principles of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and does not bow before the unjust diktats of the Centre in Delhi,” remarked Malik.  

On November 12, violence erupted in three cities in the State – Amravati, Malegaon and Nanded— after some minority organizations had reportedly given the call for a day-long shutdown to protest against incidents of mosques being allegedly vandalized in Northeastern state of Tripura.  

A ‘counter-bandh’ was called by the BJP in Amravati as a challenge to the one called by minority groups on November 13. 

According to authorities, hundreds of people, many of them holding saffron flags in their hands, raising slogans, had come out on streets which resulted in violence and damage to property belonging to minority community members. The police were forced to lathi charge the protestors. 

Earlier on Sunday, Home Minister Dilip Walse-Patil had said that the situation in Amravati district and other parts of Maharashtra was well under control and that the motive behind the rallies called by certain organizations which led to violence and a heightening of communal tensions in some cities of the State would be probed.  

The Minister further informed that no casualties have been reported from Amravati so far where a three-day curfew has been imposed and internet services suspended.