Uddhav aide booked for assaulting civic employee

The Mumbai Police on Tuesday registered a first information report (FIR) against Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray MLC and former Maharashtra minister Anil Parab and four others for allegedly assaulting and threatening a civic engineer, an official said.

According to the Vakola police official, Parab along with other Shiv Sena-UBT functionaries took out a morcha in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) H-East ward on Monday afternoon, expressing anguish over the demolition of a party office in suburban Bandra last week.

A delegation led by Parab reached the BMC's office to meet H-East ward officer Swapna Kshirsagar.

They asked her to present in front of them the officials who had demolished the party office even as pictures of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray were there on the party office board, as per the FIR.

When some civic staffers came forward, Shiv Sena-UBT functionaries allegedly assaulted BMC's assistant engineer Ajay Patil (42) and also threatened him with dire consequences, the FIR said.

After the incident, BMC officials approached the Vakola police with a complaint, based on which an FIR was registered against Parab and four others - Santosh Kadam, Sada Parab, Uday Dalwi and Haji Aleem Khan, the police official said.

The case was registered under various Indian Penal Code sections, including 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of duty) and 506-2 (criminal intimidation), the official said.

A probe was on into the case, he added.

Notably, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) recently filed a chargesheet in a court in Mumbai against Parab's aide Sadanand Kadam and former government official Jairam Deshpande in an alleged money laundering case and alleged Parab built a resort at Dapoli in Ratnagiri district by investing his unaccounted money .

Parab has denied the allegations.

The ED had also questioned Parab, but he has not been named as an accused in the chargesheet.