6 Shiv Sena workers held as Oppn blames M’rashtra CM

Mumbai, October 12 

Six Shiv Sena workers were arrested in connection with the ink attack on Sudheendra Kulkarni, a former BJP member and head of a city-based think-tank, earlier in the day as the Opposition held Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis responsible for the incident.

The arrest came hours after police registered an FIR against unidentified persons for blackening the face of Kulkarni, chairman of Observer Research Foundation (ORF), ahead of the launch of former Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri's book, 'Neither a Hawk nor a Dove: An Insider's Account of Pakistan's Foreign Policy'. "Police have arrested (six) accused and a further probe is on," DCP (Zone IV) Ashok Dudhe said.

Among those arrested is Gajanand Patil, Shakha Pramukh (branch chief) of Shiv Sena, said police. The other accused were identified as Dinesh Prasad, Ashok Waghmare, Prakash Husbe, Samadhan Jadhav and Venkatesh Nair, they said. Black ink was sprayed on the technocrat-turned-columnist for not bowing to Sena's diktat calling for cancellation of the event over its Pakistan connection. 

"It is hard to believe that Fadnavis was not aware that Shiv Sena can to go to any extent to grab attention and prove its superiority in Mumbai. Our CM should have been more proactive and should have provided full security to the people involved in hosting this event, especially given the current background of events in the city. This is a big failure," Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam told reporters here.

NCP leader Sachin Ahir, while condemning the smear attack on Kulkarni, said nobody should be allowed to carry out "hooliganism" under the guise of patriotism. "In a democracy like ours, it is essential to value differences of opinion and its existence. Nobody has a right to attack anybody or indulge in hooliganism in the name of patriotism just because someone carries a different opinion," Ahir said. — PTI