Three detained for throwing ink at Patil over his remark on Phule, Ambedkar

As Patil was stepping out of the house, a man threw ink from a bottle at his face. The policemen present at the spot detained the man as well as two others who were raising slogans against Patil.

Police have detained the ink throwers, who were said to have been agitated by a statement that Patil made in Paithan near Aurangabad. (Screengrab/ Express video)

THREE men were detained after one of them threw ink at BJP leader and state Higher and Technical Education Minister Chandrakant Patil on Saturday while he was leaving a party leader’s residence in Chinchwadgaon area of Pimpri-Chinchwad.

As Patil was stepping out of the house, a man threw ink from a bottle at his face. The policemen present at the spot detained the man as well as two others who were raising slogans against Patil.

“… There were three individuals… one of them threw ink at the minister while two others were raising slogans. The policemen present at the spot nabbed all three men,” Pimpri-Chinchwad Police Commissioner Ankush Shinde said.

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“We have taken three individuals into custody. One of them is 34 years old and lives in Pimpri. We are trying to establish the identities of the other two. So far, it seems they are not from any political party but we are verifying the details.”

The minister has been criticised by the Opposition, including NCP, Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) over his remarks at a function in Paithan on Friday. Speaking at the event, Patil had said that Jyotiba Phule, Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar had all started schools in the country. “When they started schools, the government did not give them aid. They started schools by going to the people and begging for money,” the BJP leader had said.

Patil, meanwhile, said: “What I meant was begging for funds is similar to present-day concepts of Corporate Social Responsibility, donations or crowd-funding… I should not have used the word ‘begging.’ The use of such a word is common practice in rural areas. I should have instead used the word crowd-funding. This morning, I apologised for it yet this attack happened.”

Patil said he wanted to ask Opposition leaders Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray and Ajit Pawar whether they approve of such attacks. “I expect that they will condemn this,” he added.

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BJP leader and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis said: “This is a very unfortunate incident. Though one word in his sentence may have been wrong, but the meaning of the sentence should be considered… Regarding the one word that was hurtful, Chandrakant Patil gave an explanation and issued an apology. After that, such a reaction is unfortunate…”. “It is important to be mindful while making speeches but the gist must also be understood,” he added.

Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Manisha Kayande, meanwhile, said, “We condemn the attack. But at the same time, we also deplore the tendency among members of the ruling party to first make disparaging remarks against national icons and then apologise.”
WITH ENS, MUMBAI

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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