The words Shiv Sena and Mob Violence go hand-in-hand, judgeing from their political intentions and actions over the past couple of years. It’s like as if the Shiv Sainiks are just sitting there wailing off time, waiting to pounce on any opportunity they get to force their collective physical strength on to regular civilians – in other words gundagiri.
So here we have just another incident.
I was at a photo studio in Vile-Parle West (next to the railway station) around 11.30 am, when I noticed couple of men running to each and every open shop, warning them to put down their shutters. No reasons, no explanations….all they did was gesture from their hands appealing the shop owners to lockdown.
The studio in-charge immediately called up his boss, who also asked him to do the same. Luckily, the work I had gone for was done with and I left the shop, after been given special instructions by the studio in-charge as to which roads would take me safely to Juhu.
Reached home and the first I did was on the TV and wasn’t surprise to hear that the whole chaos was flared by none other than the Shiv Sainiks.
As per news channels, Shiv Sainiks were protesting the vandalism of the statue of Balasaheb Thackeray’s wife Meena Tai.
Around 700-800 protestors gathered outside the Sena Bhavan – the party’s headquarters in Dadar – and staged a roadblock since morning. They plan to hold a larger scale dharna all over the city, today evening.
Police have set up barricades at many areas to avoid any mis-hap in the law and order situation. However, several private buses, Police outpost near Shivaji Park, cars etc. were set ablaze by an angry mob later.
It’s really ironic, the Shiv Sainiks at one end shouted slogans against Samajwadi Party leader Abu Asim Azmi (accusing him of inciting a mob in Bhiwandi town to kill two policemen recently at the recent clash) and on the other hand they themselves were burning up Police outpost in Dadar.
Plus on the news we hear the likes of Manohar Joshi and Udhav Thackeray stating that the closure of shops in several localities around the city and burning up of public/private properties were not instigated by the Shiv Sena members but were the reactions and sentiments of local Mumbai public – What load of bloody crap!
No Mumbaikar will ever support such hooligan-centric actions.
Hopefully things will settle down by evening, it’s anyways been a hell of a week for us. First the rains and now we have them, we just want our sanity back and move on with daily chores.
Comments
4 comments | Add your comment »
vikram
Jul 9th, 2006 at 10:29 am | #
why put up statues of your mothers and sisters if u can’t protect them,i don’t know why they expect the goverment to protect
them… .. they just need a reason to show how strong they are.. if you have enough manpower to close down the entire city,
why not keep a few men to protect your mothers statue.
Amrit
Jul 9th, 2006 at 4:55 pm | #
On the whole I agree with Gaurav. The Shiv Sainiks have become synonymous with violence and vandalism. I think if the leaders of the Saina claim that they are not in favor of violence, I think no one listens to them in their lumpen organization.
V Ramaswamy
Jul 10th, 2006 at 9:09 am | #
Hullo
Came upon your blog. Nice read.
You might like to visit this blog out of Calcutta:
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rama
shadows
Jul 10th, 2006 at 10:14 am | #
Sakshi, read Gaurav Sabnis’s post on the Shiv Sena about two weeks or a month ago, before this thing has come up. Just read it, it makes sense actually. And no I am not a Sena supporter. Neither does that post support the Shivsena.