19-Year Old Witness to Bhima-Koregaon Caste Clashes, Found Dead. Police Probing All Possible Angles

The body of a 19-year old girl, the lone witness to the burning of her family’s house in the Bhima-Koregaon caste clashes, was found floating in a well near a rehabilitation site for the riot victims on Sunday.

Her family had reported a missing complaint following Pooja’s disappearance  after she stepped out the house for some work on April 21.

According to Times of India, Pooja Sakat, a class 11 student, had approached different government offices over the last three months to get a new home for her family. The family had also lodged an FIR with the police in February that some local villagers were issuing threats and harassing them as Pooja was a witness to the violence.

The victim’s body was brought to Sassoon General Hospital where autopsy was performed. Her family members and relatives told the police that her body will not be accepted and taken for the last rites till the suspects were arrested by police.

Following the FIR lodged by her family member in connection with the case, the Shikrapur police have booked nine persons and arrested two amongst them under IPC Section 306 (abetment to suicide), and Section 34 of the Scheduled Castes And Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

All possible angles getting investigated

According to the victim’s family, some persons, whom she had named as culprits in her statement to the police after the house was torched on January 1, were threatening and pressurising her to withdraw her statement.

In a statement given to media, Jaideep, Pooja’s brother said, “We suspect that she may have been compelled by local villagers to end her life or she may have been pushed into the well.”

While some claimed connections of suicide with land dispute, Dalit leader advocate Prakash Ambedkar, on the other hand, demanded an inquiry into the suspicious death of Pooja Sakat, stressing the fact that she was an eyewitness in Bhima-Koregaon case and alleges that she was murdered.

Speaking to Newsclick, Mahesh Bhartiya, president of Samyak Vidyarthi Andolan also corroborated the same and said that there is no merit in allegations that the girl has committed suicide out of a property dispute because the property was registered under the name of her parents.

"We will investigate the matter from all possible angles. We will verify the allegations levelled by Pooja’s family members. But we will first try to establish what actually caused her death," the police said.