Violence reported amid protests across Maharashtra against rebels

In Pune, Sena workers attacked the office of rebel Tanaji Sawant at Katraj on Saturday. Sawant runs the Bhairavnath Sugar Work Limited Company, which has a registered office at Katraj in Pune. Vishal Dhanawde, a Sena corporator from Pune, and other party workers ransacked the Katraj office around 11 am.

At Thane’s Ulhasnagar, at least five Shiv Sena supporters were detained on Saturday for allegedly pelting stones at the office of Shrikant Shinde, the Lok Sabha MP from Kalyan and the son of rebel leader Eknath Shinde.

The incident took place at Shrikant’s Gol Maidan office. A video that has gone viral on the social media showed some persons throwing stones at the office, damaging a board and raising pro-Uddhav Thackeray slogans.
Besides, posters of Eknath Shinde were blackened in Navi Mumbai, Nagpur and Nashik. A demonstration was also held against all rebel MLAs at Hadapsar in Pune.

At Navi Mumbai and Parbhani, effigies of Eknath Shinde and other MLAs like Bharat Gogawale, Mahendra Dalvi, Mahendra Thorve and Gulabrao Patil, were burnt. At Osmanabad, while the Sena again targeted Tanaji Sawant, party workers threw chappals on Sawant’s poster in Satara.

In Nagpur, Sena workers blackened and tore posters of Eknath Shinde outside his office. While at Nanded, the workers tried to burn the effigy of MLA Balaji Kalyankar, at four places of Boisar in Palghar, Sainiks threw ink on the posters of Shinde.

On Friday afternoon, the Nehru Nagar police had taken local Sena leader Dilip More and 19 workers from Kurla in Mumbai into custody for damaging a board outside the office of rebel MLA Mangesh Kudalkar.

The Mumbai Police, meanwhile, has stepped up security at the residences and offices of ministers, MPs, MLAs and
corporators.