Court issues arrest warrant against Raj Thackeray

A Jamshedpur court on Friday issued an arrest warrant against Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, the second such warrant by a Jharkhand court in the past one year, after he failed to appear in the court on Thursday in connection with a case of making allegedly provocative comments against members of a particular community about a year ago.

The court of Judicial Magistrate Anil Kumar issued the warrant against Thackeray after he failed to appear before the court in connection with the case lodged against him by lawyer Sudhir Kumar Pappu under Sections 504, 153A, 153B, on the charge of making provocative comments against a community in March last year.

On May 16, the Jharkhand high court directed the MNS chief to appear in the lower court in Jamshedpur on June 12 after turning down Thackeray's plea for quashing the petition.

The MNS chief had pleaded before the high court for quashing the case lodged against him after the court of First Class Judicial Magistrate D C Awasthy issued an arrest warrant against him on May 24 last year.

Thackeray had claimed before the HC that the allegations against him were baseless.