By Kunal Purohit
This is the first article in the ‘Footsoldiers of Hindutva’ series.
Jamner (Maharashtra): When Sambhaji Bhide, the 85-year-old leader of the Hindutva outfit Shiv Pratisthan Hindustan, insisted that his followers take out marches each August 15 to to push for the tricolour to be replaced by a saffron flag, Sojwal Teli hit the ground.
When Bhide insisted that his followers mark in penance the period in which Sambhaji, the Maratha emperor, was captured by the Mughals, Teli complied and walked barefoot in the scorching March sun.
Bhide praised Chhava, the controversial Hindi film depicting Sambhaji’s life. Teli organised a public screening in an open ground in his village.
His three friends – Krushna Teli, Rishikesh Teli and Aditya Devre – would often join him in these ventures.
Devre, locals in Jamner said, was in many ways their leader in the area.
On their social media accounts, they all proudly flaunted their association with Bhide’s outfit, Shiv Pratisthan Hindustan, and their loyalty to Bhide.
In 2023, Bhide asked his followers to chop down Muslim men who engage in love jihad, i.e. who fall in love with Hindu women.
Last month, all of them demonstrated their loyalty to Bhide when they led a mob of young Hindu men who allegedly lynched 20-year-old Suleman Pathan in a village near Jamner town of Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district.
The incident occurred on August 11, when Pathan was sitting in a café with a Hindu girl in Jamner town. Incensed, a mob of Hindu men dragged him out, assaulted him, kidnapped him and assaulted him at various spots en route to his village Betawad Khurd, where his family too was assaulted by the mob.
Pathan died soon after.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
