Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
MSRTC workers denied bail; lawyer sent to police custody
MUMBAI: The Esplanade metropolitan magistrate court on Saturday remanded 109 employees of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC), arrested for rioting outside Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar’s residence on Friday, in judicial custody. The court also remanded the lawyer of the arrested MSRTC employees, advocate Gunratan Sadavarte, in two-day police custody.
Immediately after they were sent to judicial custody, the 109 arrested MSRTC employees applied for bail, but the magistrate court rejected their pleas. They will now move the sessions court for bail. Gamdevi police on Friday arrested 110 protesters, including 23 women and advocate Sadavarte, for rioting outside Pawar’s residence. 104 persons were arrested from the Malabar Hill area immediately after the incident, whereas six were arrested Friday night.
The protestors had on Friday afternoon gathered outside Silver Oak and raised slogans against Pawar, claiming that the NCP chief did nothing to fulfil their demands and even pelted stones, shoes and chappals at the house. On Saturday, all the arrested persons were produced before the Esplanade metropolitan magistrate court where special public prosecutor Pradeep Gharat sought police custody remand for all of them.
Insisting on Sadavarte’s custody remand, Gharat said that he is the main instigator and wants to find out the brain behind the conspiracy that led to the incident. The FIR mentions that on Thursday while speaking to the media, Sadavarte had claimed that the MSTRC workers “will break into the residence of Sharad Pawar and will ask him questions.” Police suspect that this statement had provoked the striking staffers.
Sadavarte’s lawyer, advocate Mahesh Vaswani, denied the allegations and maintained that
Sadavarte was falsely implicated since he has been fighting cases against the state government. “He has raised his voice against the government and hence action is being taken against him,” said advocate Vaswani.
Police sources said that investigators suspect that the attack could be pre-planned as few individuals were spotted suspiciously moving in the area to recce Pawar’s residence two days before the attack. The movement was captured in the CCTV camera but are yet to be identified. Meanwhile, top brass of the city police on Saturday filled up the vacant post of zone 2 DCP after the attack on Pawar’s Silver Oak residence that is located in Zone-2’s jurisdiction. DCP (Detection) Neelotpal has now been posted as zone 2 DCP.