Sunil Baburao Kawle, a youth from Jalna, died by suicide in Mumbai on Thursday. A suicide note recovered by police from his bag revealed that he ended his life for the sake of reservation, Morcha coordinator Vinod Patil said Friday.
Speaking at a huge rally at Rajgurunagar in Pune district, Manoj Jarange appealed to the community members not to resort to violence or any extreme step like suicide. He will explain the further course of action for the agitation on Sunday.
“Yesterday, one of our brothers, Sunil Kawale, ended his life while seeking quota (in Mumbai). In the last more than a month, 15 to 16 people from the community have ended their lives. In the past, 47 people from the community ended their lives. As a community, we will not allow their sacrifices to go to waste,” Manoj Jarange Patil said.
Had the government agreed to give quota to the Marathas earlier, these deaths could have been avoided, Jarange said.
“We started this agitation on August 29. The fight is going on even today. One of our brothers opined that there should be “thoka thoki” (violent agitation) now…but because of our peaceful approach, the issue has reached the stage of decision-making process. Now no one has the courage to stop this agitation. I have given my word to everyone that reservation will be obtained in a peaceful manner, and I will not step back an inch until the community gets reservation,” he added.
Marathas across the state should be given Kunbi certificates, he demanded. The Kunbi community enjoys reservation under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category in Maharashtra.
The leader had previously given the state government a deadline of October 24 for their demands and announced that he would reveal the next course of action on October 22. At the rally, he reaffirmed this plan.
Notably, following Jarange's hunger strike, the government agreed to provide Kunbi certificates to eligible Marathas in the Marathwada region of central Maharashtra.
Jarange asked community members to go from door to door in every village and explain why all Marathas needed to come together on the issue.
“No one shall think of committing suicide and no one shall get provoked and resort to violence….This peaceful agitation will get the Maratha community reservation,” he said.