Four MNS activists arrested in Pune for attack on NCP office

PUNE: Four MNS activists were arrested for allegedly attacking the office of NCP here, police said today.

The four were arrested yesterday for attacking the NCP office in the city on Wednesday after tension in some parts of the state following a stone-pelting incident targeting MNS chief Raj Thackeray's convoy, Khadak police said.

The four accused, identified as Ashish Bhalchandra Sable, Abhishek Thite, Sachin Katkar and Ranjit Dhage, were later produced in a court which remanded them in two-day police custody, they said.

Suspected NCP workers had hurled stones at Raj Thackeray's convoy at Bhingar in Ahmednagar district on Tuesday and waived black flags, following which MNS workers and supporters vandalised NCP offices in several parts of Mumbai and adjoining Thane.

NCP activists were angry over Thackeray's criticism of state Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, nephew of party supremo Sharad Pawar, whom the MNS leader blamed for the severe drought in several parts of the state.

Thackeray had at a public meeting in Solapur recently attacked Pawar, who headed the water resources ministry between 1999 and 2009, for allegedly having failed to check water scarcity despite huge spendings on irrigation projects.