Mumbai: The Maharashtra legislature yesterday suspended five of its members, including one each from the BJP, Shiv Sena and MNS, for assaulting a police officer within the legislature premises.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Harshwardhan Patil announced the suspension of the five legislators from the house till the end of the year.
The five are independent legislators Kshitij Thakur and Pradeep Jaiswal, Shiv Sena’s Rajan Salvi, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s (MNS) Ram Kadam, and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Jaykumar Rawal.
They were booked by police late on Tuesday night for thrashing Assistant Police Inspector Sachin Suryawanshi on the first floor of the Maharashtra Vidhan Bhavan Tuesday afternoon.
The provocation for the attack was an incident on Monday when Suryawanshi allegedly stopped the vehicle of independent legislator Kshitij Thakur and fined him for violating the speed limit on the Rajiv Gandhi Bandra-Worli Sea Link. Suryawanshi slapped a fine of Rs700 on Thakur, which resulted in a heated argument between them. The independent legislator from Nala Sopara (Thane) constituency alleged that Suryawanshi misbehaved
with him.
Thakur recounted the incident in the house on Tuesday and moved a breach of privilege notice against the police official, who was in the visitors’ gallery to answer the charges against him.
After Thakur’s detailed account, several legislators cutting across party lines demanded Suryawanshi’s suspension for misbehaviour with a lawmaker.
Just then, some legislators saw Suryawanshi, who was allegedly gesticulating at the members below from the visitors’ gallery.
Thakur recognised him and along with some other legislators, rushed outside to chase and catch Suryawanshi on the first floor. There, they slapped, punched and kicked him. Not taking the incident lying down, several top IPS officers of Maharasthra, including city Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh, called on Chief Minsiter Prithviraj Chavan and
demanded action. IANS
