Thane: The Naupada police on Thursday arrested four Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) workers for allegedly attacking Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) assistant commissioner (anti- encroachment department ) Mahesh Aher.
The attack took place on Wednesday outside the TMC headquarters at Pachapakkhadi. The attack was carried out after an audio clip in which Aher claimed to have hired contract killers to eliminate Jitendra Awhad, NCP leader and ex-housing minister in the erstwhile MVA government and target his family. On Thurssday, Awhad sent a written complaint to the Thane police commissioner Jaijeet Singh against Aher.
Jitendra Awhad booked after complaint
Soon after the incident the Naupada police had registered the complaint of Mahesh Aher against Awad, his personal assistant Abhijit Pawar and NCP party workers Vikram Khamkar, Hemant Vani, Vishant Gaikwad for alleged attempt to murder, obstructing a public servant from performing his duty and other offences. Awhad himself was not present during the attack. The Naupada police said the four arrested persons were produced before the Thane session court which remanded them to one day's police custody.
Aher rubbishes audio clip
Meanwhile,in an interaction with the media on Thursday at Jupiter Hospital, where he is admitted, Aher vehemently stated that he had nothing to do with the controversial audio clip . Said he: "I haven't heard the audio clip and hence I can't tell whose voice is it. On January 5, 2023 I filed a case against a person Saurav vartak at Naupada police station for threatening me for performing my duty. At that time I had presented a pen drive to the police. which contained some audio clips. In one of the audio clip a person talked of taking supari for my murder."
Aher accuses Awhad
Aher also made serious allegations against Awhad and said, "I have been a assistant commissioner of encroachment department in Mumbra (which is the assembly constituency of Awhad) since 2019. I have demolished many unauthorized constructions. There was a lot of pressure on me not to demolish these structures. I and my family were abused. When I took charge of the encroachment department, I was told by Awhad not to take action in his constituency without asking him. There are many things that I will bring forward in the coming days. Also, I and my family are under threat from Jitendra Awhad and his workers".
Audio clip sent to cyber crime
When the FPJ asked senior police inspector Sanjay Dhumal whether any action is proposed to be taken about any action against TMC assistant commissioner Mahesh Aher on the audio clip to which he replied, " As of now the written complaint of Awhad against Mahesh Aher has been taken on record. We haven't filed any FIR yet. The audio clip has been sent to the cyber crime team to check its authenticity. We will be getting the report after three days and after that we will take further action."
