Video: NCP corporator, aides assault on-duty BMC engineer at Tardeo
A still from the video
On Friday, Tardeo police registered a case against Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) corporator Ratna Mahale and her aides for assaulting an on-duty civic engineer. The complaint was filed by junior engineers Ravi Gupta and Prakash Sonawane.
The incident was captured by an unidentified person who was standing next to one of the engineers at the time. In the video, Mahale and her aides can be seen harassing the engineers from G-south ward. The civic employees were also spoken to in a threatening tone, pushed and abused at.
The engineers were reportedly removing the banners and flags put up by the party on the basis of a verbal order, which did not go down well with the Mahalaxmi corporator. The incident occurred near Lala Lajpat Rai College junction at Haji Ali.
Following the incident, a civic employee who was present at the spot told a leading daily, “It was a routine exercise and we were following our seniors’ orders. We tried to explain to the corporator when she approached us. But she was not ready to listen. Party worker Vishal Kesarkar got very aggressive. He started abusing us, and when we objected, he started attacking us physically. That’s when we called up our seniors at the ward office.”
According to the high court orders, all illegal banners put up by political parties need to be removed. However, civic employees are often dealt with aggressively when they try to remove them.
In the wake of the incident, Sukhdev Kashid, secretary, Municipal Engineers association has demanded that anyone threatening a public servant and stopping them from doing their job should be removed from their posts.
Meanwhile, Tardeo police have booked Mahale and four of her associates under sections 143, 149, 332, 353, 504 of the Indian Penal Code. According to the police, one of her aides, Vishal Kasare, already has five criminal cases registered against him. Four of which are related to assault on public servants.
Police investigation is currently underway, but no arrests have been made so far.
