Recently, Shiv Sena which is heading the Mahavikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra in its editorial Saamna had said a deeper probe into the brutal rape and murder of a woman in suburban Sakinaka will show how much "dirt" the ''Jaunpur pattern'' has created in Mumbai.
Mumbai Congress chief Vishwabandhu Rai on Saturday raised objections and wrote to Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari criticising MVA govt's stand on Sakinaka rape-murder case. In his letter he wrote, "CM is head of a regional party and his political concern is regionalism. He targeted people from other states in the case to satisfy his vote bank."
Shiv Sena had rejected comparisons to the Hathras rape-murder case of Uttar Pradesh last year that had caused nationwide outrage, and said the accused in the Mumbai incident had been arrested immediately and will be given severe punishment.
Notably, Congress is one of the allies in the Mahavikas Aghadi along with the NCP and Shiv Sena.
In his letter to the governor, expressing disappointment towards Uddhav Thackeray, Rai wrote, "after the Sakinaka rape case, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has indirectly blamed other states for this. A rapist irrespective of any religion, language, caste should be hanged to death.
Rai also explained, crime against women in Mumbai has increased by 144% in the last few months. "In the year 2020, 2051 cases of rape have been registered in entire Maharashtra," he added.
In the Sakinaka case, the Mumbai Police Commissioner Hemant Nagrale had given a statement saying that the police cannot be present during the time of incident, commenting on this Rai said, "action could have been taken against him by the govt."
Further he alleged that Chief Minister of Maharashtra is also the president of a regional party and so his political concern is provincialism. "Therefore, by directly targeting other states in the Sakinaka rape case, he has tried to satisfy his own vote bank," he said.
"Directly or indirectly targeting the people of other states by any chief minister is a condemnable act", Rai said adding "some other small regional parties of Maharashtra also do petty politics by targeting the entire trans-provincial society by taking the help of social background of one or two perpetrators of such incidents."
Citing the latest Dombivali rape case, he said all the accused in any religion, language and state should be punished severely.
For the unversed, a 32-year-old woman was sexually assaulted and an unknown object was inserted in her private parts on September 10 in Sakinaka and succumbed to her injuries in a hospital the very next day. The Mumbai Police arrested the accused, identified as Mohan Chouhan and initially booked him for rape. After the woman succumbed to her injuries, murder was added to the FIR.