Tension triggered by yesterday’s stone-pelting incident targeting Raj Thackeray’s convoy escalated today with MNS workers and supporters vandalising NCP offices in several parts of Mumbai and adjoining Thane.
Police lodged two FIRs against MNS activists, arrested six of them and registered some non-cognizable offences in
several parts of the metropolis, officials said.
NCP, a coalition partner in the Congress-led government in the state, has denied that its workers were
involved in the attack on Thackeray’s convoy at Bhingar in Ahmednagar district last evening and dubbed the incident as “stage-managed”.
Tension brewed in parts of Mumbai and adjoining Thane districts since the midnight attack on NCP office at Ambernath with MNS trying to enforce a bandh to protest the Bhingar incident.
Angry MNS workers burnt effigies of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit pawar and blackened his posters in some parts of
the city.
Incidents of stone throwing were also reported from Khar, Antop Hill, Chembur, Kurla and Bandra, police said.
Six people were arrested by the Khar police in suburban Mumbai after they vandalized the NCP’s office there,
while in Antop Hill in Central Mumbai a case of stone pelting was registered against four persons all of whom are
absconding.
Bandra police registered a Non-Cognizable offence against MNS workers after they allegedly tore NCP posters.
In central suburb of Mulund, 11 people were detained for illegal assembly and sloganeering, police said, adding there was some stone pelting in Vikroli also.
Minor clashes were reported between activists of the two parties but there was no official confirmation.
A car and a bus were were also damaged by MNS workers.
Suspected NCP workers had hurled stones at Thackeray’s convoy at Bhingar and waved black flags but nobody was
injured.
NCP activists were furious at Thackeray’s criticism of Pawar, nephew of party supremo Sharad Pawar, whom the MNS
leader blamed for the severe drought in several parts of the state.
Thackeray had at a public meeting in Solapur recently attacked Pawar, who headed the water resources ministry
between 1999 and 2009, for allegedly having failed to check water scarcity despite huge spendings on irrigation projects.
—————PTI