Mumbai, Feb 3 (IANS) Abu Asim Azmi, the president of the Maharashtra unit of Samajwadi Party, and some of his supporters were arrested here late Sunday evening after they protested outside the chief minister’s residence against violence in the state.
Azmi and others had gone to meet Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh at his residence in south Mumbai, said city Samajwadi Party youth president Farooq Ghosi, who too was among those arrested.
“We wanted to apprise him of the recent attacks on our party men and the north Indians by MNS activists and how police remained a mute spectator,” he said.
When Deshmukh declined to meet them, the angry delegation squatted in protest outside Varsha, the chief minister’s official residence at the Malabar Hill.
When they refused to disperse, police took them into custody for unlawful assembly in a high-security VIP zone.
The Malabar Hill facing the Arabian Sea is home to, apart from the chief minister, the governor, state ministers, high court judges, foreign diplomatic corps, top civil and police officials, industrialists and others.
Entire Sunday saw violent clashes between MNS and Samajwadi Party activists in different parts of the state following MNS chief Raj Thackeray’s controversial remarks.