The state government is readying to arrest Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray on the charge of inciting violence and hatred.
PM expresses concern after Lalu raises Mumbai violence at cabinet meet
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: The state government is readying to arrest Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray on the charge of inciting violence and hatred even as the attacks on north Indians in Mumbai figured at Thursday’s meeting of the Union cabinet.
Prime minister Manmohan Singh has reportedly ordered stern action against sectarian violence.
Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh returned to Mumbai from Delhi in the evening after a detailed meeting with Union home minister Shivraj Patil on the handling of the issue. Both the centre and the state government are clear that a strong legal case needs to be built against the MNS chief before action is taken.
To this end, the state government has collected video footage of all the rallies, press conferences, interviews, and sound bites of the MNS chief for use as evidence. And state home minister RR Patil has convened a meeting on Friday to work out the specifics.
At the Union cabinet meeting, the attacks on north Indians by the MNS in Mumbai was first raised by Railway minister Lalu Prasad who was supported by Ramvilas Paswan and Priyaranjan Dasmunsi.
The prime minister asked Shivraj Patil to ensure that stern action was taken against those instigating trouble. The Congress is particularly concerned about the likelihood of the violence spreading and retaliation against Marathi-speaking people in parts of north India. There is serious concern at the centre about what is perceived as the laidback response of the state authorities.
The Chief Minister, who was in the capital to brief the centre about the situation, reportedly explained that his government did not want to do things in a manner that would give the MNS chief political mileage.
The Maharashtra government had got legal opinion from its advocate general, Ravindra Kadam, on the question of arresting Raj Thackeray. Deshmukh said his government would protect all residents of Mumbai, whether they came from the north or the south.
Meanwhile, Raj Thackeray left for Pune on Thursday to call on the family of the Bhor taluka president of his party, who was killed in the morning in an attack over a local dispute.
In Mumbai, RR Patil refused to say if the government was also considering the arrest of Samajwadi Party MP Abu Asim Azmi, who had made an allegedly inflammatory speech at his party’s rally at Shivaji Park on Sunday.
A senior home ministry official, however, said the government was not biased against any party and did not want to act in haste. It had collected video recordings of the Shivaji Park rally too and was studying them.
Mumbai police also arrested three MNS leaders for allegedly inciting violence. General secretaries Nitin Sardesai and Pravin Darekar and student wing leader Aditya Shirodkar were arrested from the party office in Dadar (West) and taken to deputy commissioner of police Sunil Ramanand’s office in Matunga.
Ramanand later told DNA, “All three were arrested for inciting riots on Sunday. Though the MNS said they were not present at the scene of the violence, they have been charged with instigating the workers.” The three leaders were at the party office for a function to welcome 100 Shiv Sena supporters into the MNS.
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