On Saturday, a group of close to 50 members of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) barged into Gulmohar Appartments, located in the Balaji Nagar area of Dhankavali and accused three Bengali Muslim men of being Bangladeshi. The men were led by Rahul Gawli and accompanied by the police.
MNS member Sachin Katkar told Indian Express, “Raj Thackeray saheb had given us an aadesh (order) to remove Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims staying in Maharashtra illegally. As per this directive, we gathered early morning in presence of the police at the thickly crowded Balajinagar area, where many illegal immigrants stay. After conducting the raid, we handed over the illegal Bangladeshis to the police. Although they showed some ID documents, they were clearly fake.”
On February 9, 2020, at a mega rally in support of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), MNS chief Raj Thackeray, in a purported attempt to hold on to last vestiges of political relevance by way of getting into the regime’s good books had said that illegal immigrants should be “thrown out”. In a chilling warning to the Muslim community, Thackeray had said, “Henceforth, it will be a stone for a stone and a sword for a sword.” He had also said that if the administration was unable to weed out the Bagladeshis, his party men would do the job.
Meanwhile, the three Pune men were identified as Dilshad Mansuri, Roshan Shaikh and Bappi Sardar, all hailing from West Bengal. Dilshad operates a food stall, Bappi is an electrician and Shaikh polishes gold and silver jewellery. They were forced to produce evidence of Indian citizenship. The men were taken to the Sahakar Nagar police station where Shaikh was made to call his mother in Hoogly and she in turn was made to rush to the nearest police station to get them to confirm that he was indeed her Indian born son. After their credentials checked out, the police were forced to let them go.
Shaikh has now filed a complaint against the MNS men accusing them of harassment, trespassing and invasion of privacy. He narrated his ordeal saying, “At the police station, the cops took details of my mother in Hooghly and called her. Although she confirmed that I belong to Hooghly, the police officer asked her to go to the nearest police station and request the local cops to re-confirm that I was her son born in India. My mother had to rush to the Pandua police station and request the policeman to speak to cops in Pune. Even after this condition was met, they made me wait at the police station until 6 pm, while my wife and kids anxiously waited for me.”