Auto driver thrashed for refusing to speak Marathi: 20 Sena UBT, MNS workers booked

The autorickshaw driver was identified as Raju Patwa, who hails from Uttar Pradesh.

A video of Patwa had surfaced on social media, last week, in which he refused to speak Marathi during an argument with a man and his sister.

After the video went viral, Sena UBT workers along with its Virar unit chief Uday Jadhav and MNS members located Patwa at the rickshaw stand near the Virar railway station.

As per the police complaint, the group, including the man and the sister with whom he had an argument, assaulted Patwa.

They slapped him publicly and forced him to apologise to the man and the sister, and to the Marathi-speaking people, said a police officer.

Taking cognisance of the incident, the police registered an FIR against 20 persons under sections 189(2) (Unlawful assembly), 190 (Every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object,) 191(2) (Rioting), 115(2) (Voluntarily causing hurt), section 351(2) )(criminal intimidation) and relevant sections under the Maharashtra Police Act.

Police are yet to make any arrests in the matter and are trying to identify attackers and ascertain their roles by scanning footages from CCTVs of nearby stores and from the viral videos.

In a similar incident, members of MNS had slapped a sweet shop owner in Mira Road for refusing to speak in Marathi, which triggered protests by local traders against the attack.

Later, MNS members and other political activists also took out a protest rally, despite police refusing them permission.