PUNE: Pune Police rounded up 300 Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) workers yesterday for targeting educational institutions and federal government offices for the past three days as part of their anti-migrant demonstrations, which was suddenly renewed on the instructions of MNS President Raj Thackeray.
The MNS demonstrators caused widespread damage to property in three educational institutions: the Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT), Indira Institute of Management and the GH Raisoni College of Engineering and Management.
They also partially disrupted the recruitment process at the Ammunition Factory and Income Tax office.
At the Ammunition Factory in Khadki suburb, MNS workers attacked the candidates from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
While the protesters were indulging in acts of vandalism for the past three days, the Congress party-led Democratic Front government remained mute. The police also failed to take action against the miscreants.
On the Marathi issue, Thackeray has now trained his guns on English schools.
In a letter sent to all English schools in the state, Thackeray demanded that Marathi be made compulsory in their schools or they be prepared to face the consequences.
“Teach Marathi, or worse, where Marathi is not taught at all: prepare for rough times,” Thackeray said in his letter.
Speaking to journalists, Thackeray said, “Time and time again, this removal of Marathi from the average person’s consciousness is being done at many levels.”
“We have found that in many English-medium schools, Marathi is not being taught, or is an optional language.”
The letter, a copy of which was obtained by Arab News, congratulated Maharashtra schools that teach Marathi from first to tenth grade, and labeled schools that did not teach the indigenous language of going “against the interests of the state” and implied that these institutions do not deserve access to power and water provided by the government. “The state will henceforth not excuse the evil of creating entire generations who do not know Marathi though they are living here,” the letter said.
Asked why the MNS was using violence to combat what he terms “disobedience from outsiders,” Thackeray said, “These are the only methods to be used against people who refuse to see reason.”
Also on MNS radar are shops and other commercial establishments that have still not put up signboards in Marathi.
“A letter has been prepared for such shops also. They will be given a month to comply, failing which the MNS will deal with them in its own way,” Thackeray warned.
Thackeray once again expressed his anger at Maharashtra “bearing the burden of the underdeveloped Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.”
