A man accused of molesting numerous women in Mumbai was thrashed by a Shiv Sena leader, according to a video uploaded by the Sena leader on his Facebook page. In an accompanying post, Shiv Sena Nitin Nandgaonkar said he was dedicating the video to women of Maharashtra.
The man, said to be a repeat offender, was seen in a video clip, running up to a young woman and kissing her on the face before turning back. The video was recorded on a CCTV camera installed on the foot overbridge at Mumbai’s Matunga railway station.
The man, identified as Raijur Habibur Khan, was arrested in January on a pickpocketing charge since no woman came forward to file charges against him. But it transpired during the police probe that he was a serial offender. Khan was released on bail soon after.
The 6:51-minute video starts with the Sena leader introducing his subject, the man accused of being the serial offender seen at Matunga railway station. Khan is sitting on the floor facing Nandgaonkar. About 30 seconds into the video, Nandgaonkar lands the first slap on his face as he forces the man to look into the camera.
The slaps continue. Nandgaonkar also keeps on talking, elaborating how, left to himself, he would have liked to punish him. ‘But the law bars me’, the Sena leader said.
{{/usCountry}}The slaps continue. Nandgaonkar also keeps on talking, elaborating how, left to himself, he would have liked to punish him. ‘But the law bars me’, the Sena leader said.
{{/usCountry}}Nitin Nandgaonkar warns him that if he doesn’t stop harassing women, the next time he would strip him naked and parade him on the streets.
The VIPs do not understand the seriousness of the offence so such perverts are released on bail, he said, invoking the Shiv Sena and its commitment to uphold security for women more than once in the entire episode.
This isn’t the first for Nandgaonkar, the Sena leader who started out with the Shiv Sena’s student wing around 2000 but switched over to Raj Thackeray’s
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena a decade later. When he returned to the Shiv Sena last year, party boss Uddhav Thackeray had tweeted a photograph of his return to make the announcement.
In the MNS, Nandgaonkar had earned a reputation for his strong-arm tactics to, what his supporters called, solving the problems of the common man. He has been accused of manhandling taxi and auto drivers and had uploaded some of these encounters on social media, for a wider audience to his brand of vigilantism.