Sena (UBT) workers assault ward official ‘who led’ branch office demolition

“We went to meet the ward officer. However, during the course of the meeting, the official who led the shakha demolition operation last week was called. He behaved very rudely with us, following which a verbal spat broke out between our workers and the official,” Khan told The Indian Express.

He said that during the demolition drive, local party workers urged civic officials to allow them to vacate the branch office. Khan alleged they were not given time to take out their belongings and that a picture of the late Bal Thackeray, founder of the Shiv Sena, was damaged.

“Damaging Balasaheb’s picture was a deliberate attempt and it hurt our workers’ sentiments. They became livid after today’s argument. This shows the civic administration is working at the behest of ruling party members. Despite illegal construction happening at thousands of places in our ward, action is being taken only against us, even though ours was a legal entity,” he said.

When contacted, ward officer Swapnaja Kshirsagar refrained from commenting.

A civic official, meanwhile, said the assaulted official is a sub-engineer. “Today’s incident was a direct repercussion of last week’s demolition drive. Thankfully, the security official intervened and the officer could be taken out. The party workers are alleging that we are targeting them specifically, which is not the fact. We demolished multiple structures including an unauthorised taxi and rickshaw stand. We will take legal action in the due course of time,” the official said, requesting anonymity.