Ravi Rana raises Umesh Kolhe murder issue in Maharashtra assembly

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], December 23 (ANI): Maharashtra MLA Ravi Rana on Friday raised the Umesh Kolhe Murder issue in the Legislative Assembly and sought Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into the case.
Rana in the House said, "In Uddhav Thackeray's regime Umesh Kolhe was Murdered at Amaravati and due to one congress leader's pressure Uddhav Thackeray has instructed the police to take this case as a robbery, but now I demand the Chief Minister (CM) and Deputy Chief Minister (DCM) to investigate this case.
"I also demand the investigate of CM Uddhav Thackeray's role in the case from SIT," said Rana.
Umesh Kolhe was an Amravati-based pharmacist who was hacked to death on June 21 night after he wrote a post in support of former Bharatiya Janata Party leader Nupur Sharma on Facebook.
Maharashtra Police initially registered the case on June 22 and the NIA re-registered the case on July 2 under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, and sections 16, 18 and 20 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.
The central agency so far has arrested 10 people for allegedly murdering Kolhe while he was on his way home after closing his chemist shop.
So far, investigators believe that Kolhe was killed in retaliation for a social media post supporting BJP's Nupur Sharma who had made controversial comments on the Prophet in a television debate.
The killing occurred exactly a week before tailor Kanhaiyalal Teli was hacked to death in Rajasthan's Udaipur district, a case that shocked the whole country.
Earlier on Thursday Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into the death case of Disha Salian, the manager of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
Bhartiya Janta Party MLAs demanded an investigation into the case in the Maharashtra Assembly.
BJP MLA Nitesh Rane and Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) MLA Bharat Gogavale raised the issue of Salian's death in the Assembly and demanded an inquiry on the alleged role of Aaditya Thackeray, who was then a state minister.
Rane said, "the Mumbai police are investigating the case. However, evidence is suspected to be tampered with during the earlier government's tenure. Hence, we demand a re-opening of this case."
Rane also added, "Let the truth about the case come out, it's still with Mumbai Police and not yet investigated by CBI. I will request the chief minister to hand over the case to CBI. The final postmortem report is yet to come and pages of the entire book are yet to be found hence Narco test of
Aaditya Thackeray must be conducted. It is A for Aaditya and A for Aaftab..."The Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena MP Rahul Shewale raised the issue in Lok Sabha and called that in Sushant Singh's case, many calls were received in the name of AU.
"Who is this "AU it's Aaditya or Uddhav," Shewale asked.
Meanwhile, Shiv Sena's (Uddhav faction) MLA Bhaskar Jadhav targeted Union and State Home Minister for delayed investigation for political benefits. He mentioned that the State Ex-Intelligence Chief Rashmi Shukla was given clean cheat on a fast track in a phone-tapping case of Maha Vikas Aghadi leaders during BJP's rule.
Leader of Opposition Ajit Pawar on Thursday criticised the ruling party for stalling the proceedings and diverting from the real issues.
Pawar said, "It is surprising that ruling parties are creating a stir on non-issues. They should be ashamed of themselves for doing such nautanki."
"Today the ruling party has created a stir in the house for the third time. The Disha Salian case was taken by CBI and it came to notice that it was suicide and everything was cleared on it. But the ruling party is again raising this issue, we wanted to raise other important issues. I want to know that do they don't trust CBI. This is against democracy and we condemn this act of the ruling party as it is nothing but a drama going on," said Pawar.
Disha Salian died on June 8, 2020, and on June 14 that year the body of Sushant Singh Rajput was found hanging from the ceiling of his Bandra residence in Mumbai. (ANI)