By IANS
Aurangabad : Close on the heels of the attack Wednesday on the Communist Party of India-Marxist’s (CPI-M) office in Pune, a group of youths allegedly belonging to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh made an abortive bid on the party’s office here early Thursday.
The dozen-odd attackers, led by Namdev Bendre, son of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) municipal councillor, were repulsed by activists of the CPI-M’s student wing and two of them, including Bendre, were handed over to the police, CPI-M district unit chief Uddhav Bhavalkar told IANS.
“A Students Federation of India (SFI) youth leaving the party office at about 1.30 a.m. on his motorcycle saw two young men loitering nearby in a suspicious manner. He immediately alerted his associates camping in the office, who came out and chased away the others lurking some distance away”, Bhavalkar said.
The SFI is the student wing of the CPI-M.
Two police constables deployed at the CPI-M office following Monday’s clash between RSS workers and Left activists and Wednesday’s attack on the CPI-M office in Pune took the potential attackers into custody, Bhavalkar added.
Confirming the post-midnight incident, Aurangabad crime branch police station officer D.S. Gadekar told IANS that the names of the others waiting in ambush near the Ajab Nagar office of the party were being ascertained.
The clash between RSS and CPI workers after an RSS public meeting Monday at the Paithan Gate area here to protest the recent killings of the right-wing Hindu organisation’s workers in Kerala’s Kannur district by CPI-M workers has led to tension in the city.
The clash occurred when some RSS workers removed a CPI flag from in front of the party’s office after the rally and burnt it saying that the CPI and CPI-M were virtually the same, CPI district unit chief Ram Baheti told IANS.
Activists of the two Leftist parties and their affiliated organisations held demonstrations in the city Wednesday to protest Monday’s incident and restored the flag, Baheti said.
The CPI affiliated Lal Bawta Rickshaw-chalak Union and All India Trade Union Congress, however, called off their ‘Aurangabad Bandh’ planned for Thursday in deference to the police request made in view of the explosive situation in the state following Wednesday’s Pune incident, he added.