MAKING
FRIENDS: MNS chief Raj Thackeray on his way to meet the city’s new
police commissioner on Monday. The previous officer, Arup Patnaik, had
taken a relatively tough stance against the party
Mateen Hafeez TNN
Mumbai: MNS chief Raj Thackeray, the person to whom many ascribed former city police chief Arup Patnaik’s hurried transfer after the August 11 mob violence, on Monday met Patnaik’s successor, Satya Pal Singh, to “boost the city police’s morale”.
Thackeray’s party was at the
receiving end of stern police action during Patnaik’s tenure, the most
recent being the arrest of MNS corporator Prakash Darekar, the brother
of key MNS MLA Pravin Darekar. The sequence of events, right from the
August 11 violence to Thackeray’s public call for Patnaik’s scalp 10
days later to ultimately the latter’s transfer, set tongues wagging
about the significance of Monday’s Singh-Thackeray meet. The MNS chief, however, denied any motive other than “boosting cops’ morale”.
Thackeray, who drove in his Mercedes to reach the police commissionerate around 4.30 pm, spoke to Singh
for 25 minutes. Talking to the media after the meeting, Thackeray said,
“Whenever new commissioners are appointed at the BMC and the city
police HQ, I congratulate them. I came here to express my best wishes
to Singh and asked him to boost the morale of the force and also police
personnel’s families. The police chief had admitted at his press
conference that the morale of the force had gone down after the August
11 violence.”
The MNS took out a rally on August 23 without
police permission, with a case being registered against the party’s
general secretary Shirish Sawant and others for marching from Girgaum
Chowpatty to Azad Maidan. Police permission was only for a gathering at
the maidan.
Thackeray, whose party workers were in the news late last month for vandalism during a film shoot in Borivli, said, “I expect from the new police chief that mistakes committed in the past will not be repeated.”
Thackeray, whose party workers were in the news late last month for vandalism during a film shoot in Borivli, said, “I expect from the new police chief that mistakes committed in the past will not be repeated.”
The Times of India, August 28, 2012
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