MUMBAI: A girl was beaten up by some women constables at the famous Lalbaugcha Raja Ganesh pandal here in a incident whose video went viral on social media prompting Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to say that the guilty will not be spared.
"This is a serious matter. The guilty won't be spared," Fadnavis told PTI after a video of the assault went viral on social media. "We have called for a report from the police within 48 hours. In these 48 hours, we will also ensure that action is taken if anybody is found to be guilty. This is a very serious incident and we will ensure that no person who is guilty of manhandling is spared," Fadnavis said.
The reason for roughing up the girl, believed to be in her early 20s, is yet to be ascertained, but preliminary investigations reveal that the victim had come for the darshan of 'Lalbaugcha Raja' two days back and was trying to gatecrash from the VIP entry, when she was caught and assaulted. A police officer said, "The footages which have gone viral show only one side of the story – what happened inside the gate. But, in her attempt to get inside, the girl misbehaved with those cops. She had been threatening them that she is a black belt in karate and had been abusing the three women constables constantly. So, the three women cops got angry and took her to the police station."
The victim was brought to the Kalachowkie police station at 2 am on Saturday morning and charged Rs 1200 under section 110 (punishment of abatement if person abetted does act with different intention from that of abettor) of the Indian Penal code. Police may call the victim and the constables to record their statements and check the CCTV footages of the spot, which were attached at the pandal.
The incident comes a day after it was reported that a lady scribe was assaulted by Lalbaugcha Raja workers. Meanwhile, a police official said the initial probe suggests that the video that went viral on internet is an old video. "City police has taken a suo-moto congiozance of the incident and the vicitm seen in the video has also been identified," said DCP (Detection-1) Mohan Dahikar.
He said the video on internet had claimed that the incident was of Friday last. Considering this, the girl's statement will be recorded by the police, he said.