Govt to make organisers pay for damage during protest

The perpetrators of Saturday’s violence may have to face a harsh monetary penalty. HT reports

The perpetrators of Saturday’s violence may have to face a harsh monetary penalty.

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Police reports reveal that 49 BEST buses, 50 private vehicles, including media OB vans, and 10 police vans were vandalised during the protest.

According to the Bombay Police Act, 1951, any organisation or political party that damages public property will need to pay a penalty, which will be equal to the damage caused.

The damage will include destruction of buses, cars, offices, irrespective of whether they belong to the government or a private party.

A senior home department official said the government had decided to request the collector to issue penalty notices once it got the list of the damage from the government.

In the recent past, the government had made several political parties, including the Shiv Sena, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the Nationalist Congress party, pay for damages done during protests.

Anil Desai, Sena MP and general secretary, said, “Just like the government has taken a tough stand on collecting damages from political parties, they should use the same discretion and make sure that the miscreants involved in Saturday’s violence have to pay up as well.”

A special team formed by the Mumbai crime branch is assessing the damage that the protesters caused to the public property so that the state government can recover the

compensation from the organisers. The panchnamas, which the police are preparing, will include the cost of damage of each property.

The Mumbai city collector, Chandrashekhar Oak, will be carrying out the procedure of fixing the penalties after he gets a request from the home department.

“According to the act, once we get the records from the home department, we will decide the compensation amounts and get the people concerned or the organisation to pay up,” said Oak.

The state government had amended the act to allow the collector to initiate recovery procedure.

Following a high court judgment in 2005, the government had made the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party pay Rs20 lakh each for the damage caused during a bandh in 2003 to protest against the Ghatkopar blasts.