MNS men evict hawkers from railway stations

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, October 21

Activists belonging to Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena today evicted hawkers from Thane and Kalyan railway stations in Mumbai as threatened by party leader Raj Thackeray earlier this month.

“We chased away nearly a hundred hawkers blocking the foot overbridges at Thane and Kalyan,” MNS leader Avinash Jadhav said. The party workers would crack down on the hawkers if they returned to the spot, he said.

Thackeray had warned railway officials that his party workers would evict hawkers illegally operating from railway stations in and around Mumbai if the authorities did not do so.

Thackeray’s threat came shortly after a stampede on a foot overbridge at Mumbai’s Elphinstone Road railway station claimed 23 lives earlier this month.

Railway officials had earlier begun evicting hawkers operating from a number of stations in Mumbai.