Crackdown on MNS leaders begins

Mumbai’s north Indians are attacked for the third day even as the cops arrest senior MNS leaders, reports Naresh Kamath.Tell us what you think...| Surfers Speak

Mumbai’s north Indians were attacked for the third day even as the Mumbai police began arresting senior Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) leaders on Tuesday.

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Senior MNS leader Bala Nandgaonkar (who is still a Shiv Sena legislator), party Spokesman Shishir Shinde and junior leaders Yashwant Killedar, Ameya Khopkar, Prakash Patankar were among those arrested.

“Sixty-nine MNS workers were arrested on Monday and 47 on Tuesday,” said Joint Commissioner (Law and Order) K.L. Prasad. Nineteen Samajwadi Party workers were also arrested.

On Tuesday, offices of Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam and noted Bhojpuri singer Manoj Tiwari were attacked. The Andheri police arrested 47 workers, including nine women, after they pelted stones at Nirupam’s office in Andheri’s JB Nagar.

A young man tried to get into Tiwari’s Versova office. When he was stopped, he pelted stones, breaking windowpanes. “We are not involved. It has become a fashion to blame our workers,” said Shirish Parker, MNS spokesman.
(With inputs from Megha Sood and Presley Thomas)