Not easy to lodge FIR against Raj Thackeray: Delhi police

The Delhi police today told a court here that it faces several legal hurdles in lodging an FIR against Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray for allegedly branding Bihar natives in Mumbai infiltrators.

The police told Metropolitan Magistrate Neeraj Gaur that neither the comments were made in the national capital nor the newspapers which carried them are printed here.

The investigating officer, who filed an action-taken-report on a complaint for registration of an FIR against Thackeray for allegedly making remarks against Bihar natives, however, said the police was ready and willing to abide by the court's direction on the issue.

"It is submitted that neither the office of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena is situated in the area of police station Subzi Mandi nor any such statement has been made by Raj Thackeray from the area of this police station," it said.

The ATR was filed on a complaint made by advocate Prem Shankar Sharma who said Thackeray's remarks, also threatening Bihar natives to throw out of Maharashtra, are provocative and anti-national, for which an FIR must be lodged against him.

The police also told the court that the complainant had claimed to have read Thackeray's alleged remarks in several English and Hindi dailies but "neither the office nor the printing press of the newspapers in which the news was published due to which the complainant has been hurt is situated in the area of the police station."

The police also claimed that "the news causing hurt to the complainant has been printed in Noida and Sahibabad, Uttar Pradesh. Hence, the complaint has been forwarded to SSP Ghaziabad for necessary action at their end."

Sharma had said in his complaint that "Thackeray's August 31 remarks that Bihar natives who have been living in Maharasthra, especially in Mumbai, shall be kicked out from the state were defaming and his provocative statement is against national integration as the Indian Constitution has given all citizens the right to live anywhere in the country."

The MNS chief had allegedly made the remarks reacting to a media report that Bihar Chief Secretary Navin Kumar wrote to Mumbai Police Commissioner voicing displeasure over the arrest of a youth from Bihar for vandalising the martyr's memorial during the Azad Maidan protest on August 11 in Mumbai.

Thackery was summoned by another court on August 30 in three different cases pertaining to attacks by MNS supporters on north Indian students, including those from Bihar, appearing for the railways' entrance exam in Mumbai on October 20, 2008.