NEW DELHI, Nov 11: A former Maharashtra Minister and a leader of the Nationalist Congress Party, Jitendra Awhad along with nine of his supporters were arrested on Friday for stopping the screening of a Marathi film over portrayal of Shivaji and thrashed viewers in Thane, police said.
The incident occurred on Monday night when Mr Awhad, Shard Pawar’s party leader, and his supporters allegedly gate-crashed into the multiplex in Thane city and disrupted the screening of “Har Har Mahadev” over the alleged “distortion of history.”
Some moviegoers were also beaten up when they protested against the forcible stopping of the show, video footage of the incident showed. Mr Awhad, the MLA from Mumbra-Kalwa constituency in Thane city, tweeted that he was summoned to the Vartak Nagar police station in the afternoon and put under arrest.
A First Information Report (FIR) was registered at Vartak Nagar police station under Indian Penal Code sections 323 (assault) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) following the incident. Mr Awhad was the housing minister in the previous Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in the state.
NCP leader and MP Supriya Sule accused the police of being under “pressure from above.” “Today, senior NCP leader Jitendra Awhad was summoned by police for probe…in a suppressed voice we heard that there’s pressure from above, we don’t know who called…not accusing anyone. Maharashtra police are the best police and we’re proud of them,” Ms Sule said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said beating up movie-goers for watching “Har Har Mahadev” will not be tolerated and action will be taken against people involved in such incidents. “People are permitted to register their opposition democratically. I have not seen the movie and I am not aware of the controversy,” Mr Fadnavis said.
(Manas Dasgupta)
