In the news over the devastation, the Pune Police have claimed that they have received a pistol along with three bullets from the house of Manorama Khedkar, mother of IAS trainee officer Puja Khedkar. This was so after Manorama Khedkar, wielding a gun and threatening a group of Maharashtra farmers, was arrested.
The case recently went into the public domain by generating a video clip in which Manorama Khedkar is said to have threatened to exterminate the residents of the Raigad district over the issue of the land. The police also recovered the SUV used in the video, which angered the public.
Manorama Khedkar and her husband, Pankaj Khedkar, and four others have been accused of assaulting the right-hand man of Pandharinath Pasalkar, who is a 65-year-old man, with a gun regarding the land dispute. The Pune court was told by the prosecution over the incident that the accused had pointed a gun at the complainant’s head and was ready to shoot, only that the complainant bent down.
Refusing bail, stating that the accused are influential and politically active persons, the police interrogated Manorama Khedkar in custody to seize the weapon and other associates accused in the case. The prosecution also argued that they wanted to know whether there were any other persons to whom Manorama Khedkar pointed the gun threats.
At the same time, the IAS trainee officer Puja Khedkar also faces similar accusations concerning the disability and OBC certificates to UPSC candidature and her behavior during her work in the Pune collector’s office. The UPSC has lodged a complaint with the Delhi Police and is pondering over her eventual shut out from their exams.
During the ongoing probe, the Government has suspended Puja Khedkar’s “district training program.” She was a former additional collector of the Pune district who transferred as a supernumerary assistant collector to Washim; she has been recalled to Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration as desired “further action.”
This complex socio-legal issue has widened the field of concern and raised specific social issues about the morality and professionalism of both Manorama Khedkar and her daughter Puja Khedkar, which are yet to come out in the open in the future course of the probe.
