Campaign backfires,MNS leader in police net for forging ration card

In an ironic twist to the MNS campaign against the use of ration cards as identity proof in polls,a shakha pramukh of the party has been arrested for allegedly forging a ration card in the name of the Bombay High Court Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar.

In an ironic twist to the MNS campaign against the use of ration cards as identity proof in polls,a shakha pramukh of the party has been arrested for allegedly forging a ration card in the name of the Bombay High Court Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar. The Shivaji Park police on Sunday arrested MNS Dadar shakha pramukh Girish Dhanurkar on charges of forgery and cheating. He has also been booked under the Essential Commodities Act.

In August,the MNS had filed a public interest litigation in the High Court challenging the Election Commissions decision to permit the use of ration cards as identity proof in the forthcoming polls. It said that the decision could facilitate bogus voting and to illustrate their contention that it was easy for anyone to procure a bogus ration card,some party activists had handed over a brand new ration card to the Chief Justice that bore his personal details. The High Court had ordered an inquiry into the card and the Shivaji Park police had also submitted a report to the court stating that the card was fake.

The party activists claimed that the card had been delivered to them by courier and that they are unaware of the source. We took the details of the courier agency from the envelope they produced and visited the Andheri-based office from where it was reportedly sent. We learnt that one Ashok Dhonde had sent the envelope and using the address he had given,we traced him and arrested him a fortnight ago, said an officer from the Shivaji Park police station,on conditions of anonymity.

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Dhonde had eventually confessed that Dhanurkar had asked him to post a blank envelope to the MNS office and the police arrested the latter from his house at Mahim,said Deputy Commissioner of Police,Zone V,Milind Bharambe.

Fake document
Advocate Uday Warunjikar,who was representing the MNS,had produced the ration card in the court on August 6 and handed it over to a much-amused Swatanter Kumar. The ration card was in the name of the Chief Justice; it mentioned the year of issue as 2001 and was signed and stamped so as to prove that a government official had visited the mentioned residence for verification. The address was shown as 55,Joglekar Building,Shivaji Park,Dadar,instead of his official bungalow at Malabar Hill. The address on the card was,ironically,a stones throw away from MNS leader Raj Thackerays residence.

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