Milind Ekbote sent to police custody till March 19

Pune: President of the Samastha Hindu Aghadi, Milind Ekbote — who was arrested Wednesday by the Pune police for his alleged role in inciting violence at Bhima-Koregaon on January 1 – has been remanded to five-day police custody till March 19 by a Pune district court.

The police produced  Ekbote in the court of judge Prahlad Bhagure on Thursday amid heavy bandobast. The Pune police arrested Ekbote Wednesday afternoon after the Supreme Court rejected his bail plea Wednesday morning. Ujjwala Pawar, public prosecutor, asked for 14 days’ police custody as the police needs to interrogate Mr Ekbote regarding his mobile which is lost and details of the people he met at Sonai Hotel on December 30, 2017.   

Ms Pawar said, “Ekbote told the police that the mobile with the SIM card he had been using before January 2, 2018, was lost. However, the police found out call records through the same mobile till January 18. The voice records match with Mr Ekbote’s voice. Despite saying he lost the mobile, Mr Ekbote did not register a complaint with the police. The police needs to find the details of mobile and text messages he sent via social networking applications.”

Ms Pawar further said, “The police wants to know details of four to five people Mr Ekbote had a meeting with at Sonai Hotel, Perne Phata, near Bhima-Koregoan on December 30, 2017, two days before the riots. Mr Ekbote distributed pamphlets before January 1 with inflammatory content. Two boys got the pamphlets printed from somewhere. The police wants to get details of these boys, the computer hard disc through which the pamphlets were printed as the disc might have more inflammatory material.”

S.K. Jain, Ekbote’s advocate, said, “We asked for minimum days of police custody as Ekbote has appeared before the police four times. We have produced the pamphlets before the police.”