Mostly ruling leaders’ riot cases dropped

Mumbai: While the state government has dropped old cases of rioting against politicians across parties including the BJP, Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP, a majority of the cases dropped were registered against ruling party leaders. This was revealed via a Right to Information (RTI) query filed in 2008 by Mumbai-based activist, Shakeel Ahmed Shaikh.

The reply to the query said the first such notification was issued in 2017 during the BJP-Sena reg-ime. It revealed that at least eight circulars were issued since June 2017, asking for withdrawal of cases against Sambhaji Bhide, BJP and Sena leaders, and thousands of workers of these parties.

The reply revealed that while chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and revenue minister Chandrakant Patil announced the move to withdraw cases pertaining to political agitations, it was made clear that cases where violence had occurred and public property had been damaged would not be withdrawn. Notwithstanding, cases against leaders where violence had taken place during agitations were withdrawn.

Finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said, “The withdrawals were carried out in accordance with the previous government’s resolution.”