NAGPUR: Security agencies suspect that the Bhima-Koregaon episode may have been planned and executed by urban Naxal cadres with an objective to fan dalit agitation across Maharashtra. The agencies have come to this conclusion following the seizure of documents regarding ‘ Yalgar Parishad ’, a meeting of Naxal front organisations held in Pune a day before the Bhima-Koregaon violence.

TOI is in possession of a copy of these documents. “As per our security agencies’ reports and records, many leaders of the front organisations who were present at the ‘Yalgar Parishad’ held at Shaniwarwada in Pune on December 31 are directly or indirectly connected to Naxalites ,” said a police officer on condition of anonymity.

“Naxalites either infiltrate such movements or trigger such sentiments as observed in past analysis of such violence,” he added. CM Devendra Fadnavis has not ruled out the possibility of left-wing extremist organisations instigating violence across Maharashtra. He told TOI in Mumbai: “We are probing the role of these organisations.”

Sources said a large number of agitators, allegedly in the “garb of activists championing the cause of the backward classes”, ensured that the police machinery was cornered and government suffered losses. Redefining the word ‘Peshwai’, which refers to the so-called oppressive rule of the Peshwas in their heydays, the front organisations have now coined ‘neo-Peshwai’, said a senior IPS officer.

Elaborating on the new term, the officer said literature circulated among the front organisations prior to the ‘Yalgar Parishad’ stated: “Sabak diya hai Bhima-Koregaon ne, nai Peshwai dafna do kabrastan me (Lesson was taught to us by Bhima-Koregaon, bury the neo-Peshwa rule).” A Nagpur-based senior woman member of a front organisation too took part in the ‘Yalgar Parishad’. The special branch at Sitabuldi police station had a few months back prepared a report against her along with evidence.

However, no FIR was registered. A security officer said the organisations had a well-crafted plan. Their campaign started from Nagpur in the second half of December with a call to take inspiration from Khairlanji (where a Dalit family was wiped out years ago) and advanced towards Bheema-Koregaon. Senior officials have claimed that the aggression of the agitators and their attempts to fuel mob fury against public property are tell-tale symptoms of a Naxal influence in urban centres.