By IANS,
Mumbai : The Samajwadi Party Monday demanded a judicial probe into the police shooting of a gun-toting Bihar youth after he allegedly tried to hijack a public bus and said the party would “reply” to the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) “in the language it understands”.
Addressing a meeting of state and city party leaders here, Samajwadi Party state president Abu Asim Azmi contended that Mumbai Police had killed an unemployed youth in an “encounter” or staged gunfightt.
“We strongly condemn this and demand a judicial inquiry into the incident,” Azmi, who is Rajya Sabha member, said.
He also declared his party’s intention to “reply to Raj Thackeray in his own language” and expose the nexus between “Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)” in last week’s arrest drama.
Reiterating his demand for MNS chief Raj Thackeray’s arrest under the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities (MPDA) Act, Azmi said the ruling Democratic Front government of Maharashtra has “failed to protect the lives and property of the five million north Indians settled in the state”.
Azmi said the party would “reply to the MNS in the language which it understands”, hinting at a violent retaliation.
The MNS has been targetting non-Maharashtrians, especially from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Last week, the party activists attacked north Indian job aspirants appearing for a railway recruitment examination in Mumbai and elsewhere in the state.
This is the second time in five years that Mumbai Police have grappled with a similar crisis. In May 2003, a constable of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) had shot dead his boss and held six other colleagues hostage inside the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.
The constable, Raj Namdeo, was peeved since his boss had refused to grant him leave to go to his native village. Senior police officials coaxed him for almost seven hours asking him to surrender. He was later arrested and released on bail. His present whereabouts are unknown.