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ShareSainiks, residents evacuate bar dancers from Kisan Nagar area
All hell broke loose in the Kisan Nagar area of Thane (west) on Monday evening after Shiv Sena activists, assisted by residents, forcefully evacuated "more than 80 per cent of the bar girls, terming them as bad influence."
This is for the second time in recent months that the anguish of the residents against the bar girls has come to the fore.
Matters came to a head on Monday after activists had started keeping watch on this area that has become a hub of bar girls. Two girls who tried to resist the activists were beaten up, eyewitnesses said.
Shiv Sena Corporator Ram Repale told DNA "We had complaints coming from the residents of the area. These bar girls come at odd hours in the night and wear indecent clothes. It is a bad influence and an embarrassment for the the residents
living nearby, especially the younger ones."
He claimed that "since the last six months, the number of these girls residing in Kisan Nagar had gone up substantially, and, some of them had even bought flats. Most of the girls hail from Jharkhand. We have managed to evict 80 per cent of them so far whilethe rest of them have been given seven days to leave."
Chaya Sambhaji Kambli, 24, a bar girl working at Kopri, said, "We have been asked to move
out soon. A few of us have already left. I have been given sometime, but I plan to move to a place where we will be accepted and not thrown out. For the moment, I have no clue where I am going to go."
While the Sainiks have taken a lead in evicting the girls, they appear to have a tacit support of the residents. In their bid to zero down on the girls, the activists patrol the area in the night. Repale told DNA that the party had kept out residents out of their campaign, but "we are in touch with the police, asking them to round up youths seen moving about after 11pm so that no violence or harm is done."
ACP Kashinath Kachre, Wagle Estate police station said, "Sainiks are protesting the indecent activities of the bar girls, but they have been warned that they can't force the girls to leave if they are not willing to. So far, no reports of violence have been registered. However, if we get reports about indecent behaviour by the girls, we will take action."
Shivani Saxena and Rekha Chavan, two keymembers of the Thane district Bar Girls' Association, came to meet harassed bar girls at the nearby Durg Punjab hotel around 3 pm . As soon as the Sainiks found out that the two had arrived, some 400 of them gathered at the spot. Among them were 40 women Sainiks, who barged into the hotel and assaulted the two women. They were beaten up and dragged to Wagle Estate Police Station.
Repale said, "We had given repeated warnings. There was no other way but to take this extreme step to remove the bar girls from this place."
