MNS attacks Congress office near CST

Mumbai: Differences between MNS and Congress over North Indians have intensified further on Friday, as MNS workers attacked Mumbai Congress office near CST. Three MNS workers went inside the Congress office in the morning and broke the glass doors of cabins when only a couple of people were present. The MNS termed it as revenge against Congress and its Mumbai Chief Sanjay Nirupam who have been supporting North Indians against the MNS’s agitation.

Boasting about the attack, MNS leader Sandeep Deshpande immediately tweeted “The MNS has carried out a ‘surgical strike’ on Nirupam’s office. (It is) tit for tat.” This is the third time that MNS and Congress had clashed. In November, Congress and MNS workers clashed at Dadar station when the former was protesting against forceful eviction of hawkers by MNS. Last week an MNS worker made a failed attempt to disrupt Nirupam’s rally in suburban Ghatkopar.

Interestingly, MNS attack came after the party chief informally permitted its workers to beat instead of getting beaten up.

Condemning the act, Nirupam termed it as cowardly attack. “Their attack on our office is a cowardly act. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis must act fast or a befitting reply will be given for sure. I also tell MNS that what you did was not politics,” Nirupam who is in Guajarat said.  Nirupam had come out in support of hawkers against whom the MNS had launched an agitation follwing a stampede at the Elphinstone railway station on September 29. A day after the stampede that claimed 22 lives, Thackeray had said such stampedes would continue to occur in Mumbai till hordes of migrants keep pouring into the city.

After the Congress office was vandalized Azad Maidan police have registered a case against eight MNS Workers and arrested them. Sandeep Deshpande was one of them. According to police officers, soon after the security staff opened the office, at around 10.15am, several MNS workers barged in and smashed all the glasses in the office’s reception area. They also smashed the windows of a car that was parked outside the office which belongs to the party’s minority cell.

Azad Maidan police officer immediately went to the spot but by the time they reached all workers had vanished. Senior PI Vasant D. Wakhare said, “ We have registered an FIR against the workers. The police have recovered footage from CCTVs installed in the premises. No one was hurt in the incident.”