[Bhima Koregaon battle is remembered for the British Army comprising dalits that had defeated upper-caste Peshwas. (Photo: Twitter/@nibbananehan)]
Pune: Event to mark the 200th anniversary of the Bhima Koregaon battle in Pune district was on Monday marred by incidents of stone pelting and vandalism.
The incident occurred in Bhima Koregaon in afternoon when people were heading towards a war memorial in the village, police said.
The violence erupted after a group and some members of the crowd on its way to visit the memorial had an argument over some issue, reports PTI.
“Stone pelting started after the argument. During the violence, vehicles and a house in the vicinity was damaged,” a police officer deployed for bandobast at Bhima Koregaon said without elaborating.
Bhima Koregaon battle is remembered for the British Army comprising dalits that had defeated upper-caste Peshwas.
People assembled to pay their respects to the martyrs of Bhima Koregaon in Koregaon, 30 kms away from Pune, were taken aback as they found themselves confronting a sudden stream of stones raining down on them from the nearby houses, according to SabrangIndia.
Individuals with saffron flags reportedly pelted stones at cars going towards the village, where thousands of people gather every New Year’s Day to commemorate the victory of the English, whose troops comprised mostly of Mahar soldiers, against the Brahmin Peshwa-led Maratha Empire in 1818.
“The situation is bad and there is trouble in all directions,” Police Inspector Ramesh Galande of the Shikrapur police station, under whose jurisdiction Koregaon Bhima falls, told Scroll.in earlier on Monday.
Somnath Waghmare, a filmmaker who has made a documentary film on Bhima Koregaon, said this was the largest gathering he had seen at the site in the last five years.
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