A few sadhus, sleeping near the Siddhivinayak Temple at Prabhadevi, were beaten up late on Monday night allegedly by MNS workers.
A few sadhus, sleeping near the Siddhivinayak Temple at Prabhadevi, were beaten up late on Monday night allegedly by MNS workers. Police have picked up three members of the party in connection with the case.
The three have been identified as Vishvanath Naik, 42; Laxman Patil, 42; and Kiran Kadivarekar, 26. MNS general secretary Atul Sarpotdar denied the involvement of his party members in the attack.
The incident took place between 12.30 am and 1 am, when five to seven people carrying sticks forcibly awoke 15 to 20 sadhus (most of them are above 50 years of age) sleeping near the wall behind Ravindra Natyamandir Hall and abused them. They were slapped, abused and beaten up with sticks. The attackers were speaking in Hindi and warned the sadhus not to come near the temple again. The sadhus fled.
The incident came to light on Tuesday when some news channels telecast the incident. Soon after, top police officers contacted the Dadar police station where no one even knew about the incident. Later, officers of the Dadar police station rushed to the spot to take stock of the situation. But nobody came forward to lodge the complaint, said senior inspector Ashok Unde of the Dadar police station.
The police said they had registered a case of criminal intimidation, riot, unlawful assembly, voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons against the attackers. They have also collected the video clippings of various television news channels to identify the culprits.
The police have also brought seven sadhus who used to sleep in the same area and had run away after the attack. These sadhus were brought to the police station to record the statements and later sent to medical check up at KEM Hospital, Unde said.
Himanshu Roy, joint commissioner of police (law & order), said: “If you put together the attack and the Akhil Bharatiya Brahmin Sabha’s (Delhi) announcement of a Rs1-crore reward to anyone who slaps MNS chief Raj Thackeray, it looks like it can be the handiwork of the MNS. We are investigating into the matter.”
Roy also the police were looking for a suitable section of the IPC to book the cameramen who were shooting the incident instead of informing the police about the matter.
(Inputs from Preety Acharya)
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