BOMBAY, 5 March 2005 — There appears to be no respite for Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and the Congress party. In the latest scandal, the home minister has been charged with corruption, which has jolted the Democratic Front government.
The owner of a dance bar and restaurant has alleged that four aides of the minister of state for home, Shridham Mehtre, had extracted Rs. 300,000 for hushing up a case again him.
Taking serious note of the allegation, a delegation of the Bars and Restaurants Owners Association, will meet Congress party President Sonia Gandhi and brief her about the activities of her party minister.
Leveling serious charges against Mehtre, Krishna Shetty, one of the managers of the Bay Watch Bar and Restaurant, located in Dadar, central Bombay, told the media, that the restaurant was raided by the police last January on the orders of Mehtre for violating the time limit and keeping it open till early hours of the morning.
Yesterday, four persons, Kaka Chavan, Pawar, Gaikwad and Nirwane, took the owner of the dance bar to the state government secretariat and near the chamber of the minister, told the owner Ashok Shetty to shell out the money to close the case against his bar, or he will invite more trouble and face dire consequences if he fails to do so. In view of the threat posed by the four alleged aides of the minister, Shetty had no option but to succumb to the demand.
When Shetty was asked as to why he had kept quiet for the past two months and is only now making this disclosure, Shetty said that he was regularly being threatened and terrorized by the alleged aides of the home minister, and out of fear, he had kept quiet.
