Mumbai: In a dramatic development, the Mumbai Police on Wednesday arrested former city’s mayor and Shiv Sena (UBT fraction) leader Datta Dalvi from his residence in Vikhroli (East).
Early morning, a police team swooped down on his apartment in Kannamwar Nagar No. 1 and placed him under arrest for using a highly-objectionable abuse against chief minister Eknath Shinde. Spokesperson for the Shiv Sena (UBT) Sanjay Raut condemned the "politically-motivated" arrest carried out at the behest of the chief minister. He said "the so-called objectionable was used in a film on late Sena leader Anand Dighe (who was the political mentor of Mr Shinde) and it was cleared by the the Central Board of Film Certification."
According to the police, Dalvi attended a political function on Monday, and during a speech, he allegedly uttered an abusive word to describe Mr Shinde.
The function was held at Dina Bama Patil Rangmanch in Bhandup East on Monday evening. The complainant in matter is a man named Bhushan Palande, 36, who is a member of the Shiv Sena ( Shinde ).
According to Palande, he got to know about Dalvi’s speech after he received some voice and video clips of the event via WhatsApp. He said, Dalvi was seen passing abusive comments against Shinde. Palande said, “Our ex-mayor Dalvi is saying that had Anand Dighe knew what Shinde is doing currently, he would have smashed him, and thrown him out of the party. He also used a swear word against Shinde.”
As per the FIR, Dalvi, who was the mayor from 2005 to 2007, during his speech also mentioned how Shinde “back stabbed” Balasaheb Thackeray, Uddhav Thackeray and the party for “personal gains”.
Palande on Tuesday submitted a written complaint to the police, against Dalvi, which was converted into an FIR on the same day. By Wednesday morning, a team of police visited Dalvi’s house in Vikhroli, and placed him under arrest. Dalvi was brought to the police station later.
On Wednesday afternoon, the police produced Dalvi in a magistrate court in Mulund, where they requested the judge to grant “police custody” of at least two days. The police said that they need the custody in order to the maintain law and order situation.
However, Dalvi’s lawyer told the court that the case made against his client was part of “political vendetta” and the sections slapped on Dalvi on the FIR is “baseless”. After hearing both sides, court rejected police’s custody appeal, and remanded Dalvi to judicial custody for 14 days.
Later, Dalvi’s lawyer submitted a bail plea that said his client had no role in the commission of the alleged offence as mentioned in the FIR, but it was not entertained.
As per the FIR, police have slapped Dalvi with charges including 153 (a) (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc), 153 (b) (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), 294 (obscene acts in public places), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 505 (1) (a) (intent to incite any class or community against other class or community) among others of the Indian Penal Code.
Meanwhile, officials at Bhandup police informed that they are probing the matter further, and they have received evidence against Dalvi, related to his speech from the complainant.
