Maharashtra: Man held for mowing down journalist was accused of similar attack on anti-refinery activist

A land dealer accused of mowing down a journalist in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district also faces four more criminal cases, including one in which he allegedly tried to run over an anti-refinery activist, a police official said.

Local activists who are protesting against a proposed refinery near Rajapur in the coastal Ratnagiri district claimed that had the police acted sternly in the earlier cases, the latest incident could have been avoided.

Journalist Shashikant Warishe (48) was seriously injured on Monday when an SUV allegedly driven by Pandharinath Amberkar hit his two-wheeler near a petrol pump at Rajapur, some 440 km from Mumbai.

Warishe died in hospital the next day. An article written by Warishe against Amberkar had appeared in a local Marathi newspaper on the morning of the incident. It has been alleged that Amberkar, now arrested and booked for murder, used to threaten any person who opposed land acquisition for a proposed refinery in the area.

In April 2020, Warishe’s SUV had allegedly hit the two-wheeler of activist Manoj Mayekar in Nate area of the district. Mayekar spent two weeks in hospital due to the injuries, said a police official.

An FIR was registered against Amberkar after the incident and a trial is now underway. However, there was no allegation then that it had anything to do with Mayekar’s opposition to the proposed refinery, the police official said.