Sena shakhapramukh held for ‘manhandling’ civic official

MUMBAI: The Dadar police arrested a Shiv Sena shakha pramukh, Shailesh Mali, for manhandling a BMC junior engineer during a demolition drive in Prabhadevi on Tuesday.
The Shiv Sena controls the civic body and its worker’s act of impeding the civic campaign surprised many. “The BMC has decided to inform the Bombay high court about Tuesday’s incident,” an official said.
The civic body is removing illegal hawkers and roadside stalls on the HC’s directions.The junior engineer, Hemant Chandane, was evicting illegal vendors at the stretch between Haji Ali and Prabhadevi’s Sayani Road. Around 11.30am, Chandane and other officials removed an illegal stall in Prabhadevi, which reportedly belonged to Mali, and they loaded it into a truck.
Mali arrived at the spot and threatened an officer. Mali blocked the vehicle’s path by sleeping in front of it after which Chandane informed his seniors, who reached there along with more policemen.
Mali abused Chandane and allegedly manhandled him in the presence of cops. He was booked under the Indian Penal Code sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (wrongful restraint), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging his duty), and 506 (criminal intimidation). Mali was arrested and produced him before the court, but got bail. “During the drive civic officials did not follow proper procedure. They behaved like anti-social elements. The stall belonged to a poor woman, not Mali. He was just trying to make the officials understand the situation but they refused to listen. They filed a false case against him,” said Shiv Sena legislator Sunil Shinde.
“Mali did not assault Chandane but abused him after he refused to offload a stall from the truck,” said Nishikant Patil, senior inspector of Dadar police station.
The civic employees’ union wants the state government to enact a law protecting on-duty personnel. “Civic officials often face assaults and such instances increase just before elections. The government must make assaults against civic officials a non-bailable offence,” said Sainath Rajadhyaksha, general secretary of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Engineers’ Union.