PUNE/MUMBAI, 23 November 2007 — A mob of 300 Muslim youths went on rampage yesterday early morning in Pune damaging 10 vehicles. The police had to resort to mild cane-charge to disperse the angry mob.
According to police sources, tension was brewing since early morning in the Gultekdi suburb of Pune, after the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) employees had demolished the “illegal” encroachment of Ganibaba Mosque situated in Gultekdi. Soon a large mob gathered and attacked the Swargate police station and PMC health center, causing damage to the properties of the two offices.
The police arrested five protesting youths. The PMC action followed a Bombay High Court judgment on Wednesday, which directed the civic body to demolish all illegal religious structures immediately.
Satish Khandare, the deputy commissioner of Ppolice (DCP) Zone - II said that the large mob gathered between 3 to 5 a.m., when the demolition of the mosque had began. First the mob argued with the demolition squad officials and later shouted slogans against the police and the government and indulged in heavy stone pelting at the police and the PMC staff in which six policemen were injured.
The irate mob pelted stones heavily at three Pune municipal transport, a state transport bus, three auto-rickshaws and two public cars, smashing their window screens and damaging their bodies, Khandare said. The crowd dispersed after the police used cane-charge. The situation is reported to be tense but under control according to police sources.
Meanwhile in Mumbai, the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) caused a dent into the hopes of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) enthusiasm of holding a massive rally to be addressed by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and BSP chief Mayawati on Sunday, when it pulled down 120 hoardings of Mayawati.
A BMC official said that the action was taken after it was found out that the BSP had erected the hoardings of the UP chief minister without getting the prior permission from the civic body. The city BSP has also been clamped with a fine of rupees 60,000 by the BMC for putting up these hoardings.
In another development, the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamna in a hard hitting editorial published yesterday slammed former Prime Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) President H.D. Deve Gowda describing him as a ‘blot” on Indian politics.
The editorial stated that the developments in Karnataka were a mockery of democracy in the way the Deve Gowda ditched the alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the issue of chief ministership. Calling it an act of shamelessness on part of Deve Gowda, the editorial added that the Janata Dal (S) leader could have been awarded the Nobel Prize for the biggest treachery.
