Communal tensions: security up in Mumbai
Friday, February 15, 2008
SECURITY was boosted in India's financial hub Mumbai yesterday after a top political leader accused of stirring up hatred against migrant workers was arrested and freed on bail.
Raj Thackeray, dubbed "Mumbai's Hitler" by national news magazine The Week, faces charges of promoting communal tensions in India's cosmopolitan business and entertainment capital of 18 million people.
"Additional security is in place," said PS Pasricha, police chief of the western state of Maharashtra, where tensions have been rising for two weeks after mobs began beating up migrant workers, leading to outsiders fleeing the state.
"All is calm across the state," he said in state capital Mumbai after violence Wednesday in which roving gangs set vehicles ablaze and killed one man.
In a day of high drama Wednesday, policed arrested Thackeray, head of the Hindu nationalist Maharashtra Navirman Sena - or Army for Recreation of Maharashtra - on charges of "promoting enmity between different groups."
Thackeray, self-styled promoter of "Maharashtran pride," has said he is expressing the feelings of the "Mumbai street" and has accused migrants of failing to learn the local Marathi language and swiping jobs from locals.
In freeing Thackeray, Magistrate SK Sharma ordered the 39-year-old to ensure "safety and tranquillity" and refrain from inflammatory speeches.
The arrest of Thackeray made front-page newspaper headlines in Mumbai.
"Thirteen days on, Raj held, gagged and freed," said the Hindustan Times.
Extra security forces were deployed where Thackeray enjoys most support, such as in central Mumbai and some suburbs as well as in Nashik town, where a local man died Wednesday after being attacked by a stone-pelting mob, Pasricha said.
Four Thackeray supporters were arrested over the man's death, police said yesterday.
Also arrested and later granted bail on Wednesday was Abu Azmi, a leader of the regional Samajwadi party, which has its base in northern Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state from where many migrants come.
Azmi, facing the same charges of "promoting enmity," said he had merely been seeking to defend "innocent north Indians being targeted."
Thackeray set up his party after an acrimonious split in 2006 with his octogenarian uncle Bal Thackeray, who leads the Shiv Sena - Hindu god Shiva's army - and who has in the past also delivered diatribes against outsiders.
AFP
Raj Thackeray, dubbed "Mumbai's Hitler" by national news magazine The Week, faces charges of promoting communal tensions in India's cosmopolitan business and entertainment capital of 18 million people.
"Additional security is in place," said PS Pasricha, police chief of the western state of Maharashtra, where tensions have been rising for two weeks after mobs began beating up migrant workers, leading to outsiders fleeing the state.
"All is calm across the state," he said in state capital Mumbai after violence Wednesday in which roving gangs set vehicles ablaze and killed one man.
In a day of high drama Wednesday, policed arrested Thackeray, head of the Hindu nationalist Maharashtra Navirman Sena - or Army for Recreation of Maharashtra - on charges of "promoting enmity between different groups."
Thackeray, self-styled promoter of "Maharashtran pride," has said he is expressing the feelings of the "Mumbai street" and has accused migrants of failing to learn the local Marathi language and swiping jobs from locals.
In freeing Thackeray, Magistrate SK Sharma ordered the 39-year-old to ensure "safety and tranquillity" and refrain from inflammatory speeches.
The arrest of Thackeray made front-page newspaper headlines in Mumbai.
"Thirteen days on, Raj held, gagged and freed," said the Hindustan Times.
Extra security forces were deployed where Thackeray enjoys most support, such as in central Mumbai and some suburbs as well as in Nashik town, where a local man died Wednesday after being attacked by a stone-pelting mob, Pasricha said.
Four Thackeray supporters were arrested over the man's death, police said yesterday.
Also arrested and later granted bail on Wednesday was Abu Azmi, a leader of the regional Samajwadi party, which has its base in northern Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state from where many migrants come.
Azmi, facing the same charges of "promoting enmity," said he had merely been seeking to defend "innocent north Indians being targeted."
Thackeray set up his party after an acrimonious split in 2006 with his octogenarian uncle Bal Thackeray, who leads the Shiv Sena - Hindu god Shiva's army - and who has in the past also delivered diatribes against outsiders.
AFP
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