Four Shiv Sainiks Who Were Arrested For Assaulting Ex-Navy Officer Get Bail Within Hours

The four Shiv Sena leaders who were arrested for assaulting a retired Indian Navy officer for allegedly forwarding a cartoon on Chief Minister (CM) Uddhav Thackeray, have now been released on bail in Mumbai on Saturday (12 September), officials said.

Former Navy man Madan Sharma on Friday had alleged that some Shiv Sena workers had attacked him on Friday following a WhatsApp forward in which he shared a cartoon showing Thackeray prostrating before pictures of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar, on a WhatsApp group of his society members.

After his complaint in Samta Nagar Police Station, Shiv Sena leader Shakha Pramukh Kamlesh Kadam and three of his associates had been arrested by Mumbai Police.

However, it has now been reported that Kadam and other Shiv Sainiks have been received on bail.

It was earlier reported that though nobody from the WhatsApp group reacted on the cartoon , someone forwarded the cartoon to Kadam, the Navy officer's medico daughter Sheela Sharma said.

The Shiv Sainiks, including Shakha Pramukh Kamlesh Kadam, found these objectionable and stormed into Sharma’s home in Kandivali East on Friday, said an official of Samata Nagar Police Station here. It was a group of around 8-10 persons, all allegedly Shiv Sainiks, who came and assaulted Sharma in his society compound.

A CCTV clip of the society posted by local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Atul Bhatkalkar shows the attackers chasing Sharma, dragging him by the collar, pulling his shirt and attacking with no intervention from the society security personnel.

With red and swollen eyes, though Sharma apparently escaped serious injuries, he managed to reach home soon afterwards and then went to the police station to lodge a complaint, even as several BJP leaders slammed the government for the incident.

Besides Kadam, other known and unknown attackers have been charged under various sections of Indian Penal Code, including unlawful assembly and rioting, said Additional Commissioner of Police (North) Dilip Sawant.

(With inputs from IANS)