Solapur (Maharashtra), July 4 (IANS) In a bizarre incident, a Maharashtra lawmaker and thousands of his supporters attacked a police station in Mohol town of Solapur district on Saturday afternoon.
At least 13 policemen were injured in the resultant clashes, officials said.
According to a police official M. N. Jadhav of Solapur Control, the local Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) legislator Ramesh Kadam, accompanied by more than 3,000 supporters, led a noisy procession, to ‘surrender’ at the Mohol police station.
The surrender was to pre-empt his impending arrest after a summons was served on him for damaging public properties near the Pune-Solapur Highway on June 28, Jadhav said.
On his part, Kadam issued advertisements in the local media and circulated messages on social networking sites about his decision to ‘surrender’ which attracted hundreds of supporters joining the procession this afternoon.
As they walked shouting anti-police slogans, police attempted to stop them with barricades, but the activists started stoning police and the station house and also knocked down the barricades.
In the free-for-all, police resorted to a minor cane charge to disperse the agitated activists, but at least 13 policemen sustained injuries due to the stone-throwing.
Later, Kadam and around 15 of his supporters were detained and process was on to arrest them for rioting, damaging public properties, attacking police and other charges.
Speaking to media persons, Kadam denied that his supporters had attacked the police station or stoned policemen.
“All this is instigated by the district collector Tukaram Munde who is ‘mentally deranged’ and a ‘corrupt’ officer … He had deliberately tried to frame me in this matter,” Kadam alleged.
Top police and civil administration officials have rushed to Mohol, around 40 km from the district headquarters and the situation was brought under control by Saturday evening.
Police were deployed in large numbers in the town to defuse the tense situation and ward off any untoward incidents.