Mumbai: Mumbai Police has registered a case against Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Amit Thackeray, and 23 others in connection with a protest in the city's Shivaji Park area directed against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Law enforcement authorities have invoked multiple legal provisions, including Section 189(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to unlawful assembly.
The demonstration took place on Sunday, October 11, when Aaditya Thackeray staged a sit-in on the road outside Shivaji Park and allegedly blocked a police van carrying detained protesters. The protest had been organized in support of an agitation by the Cockroach Janta Party against CEC Kumar, and it escalated significantly when the Thackeray cousins arrived with hundreds of supporters, generating sporadic sit-ins and intense sloganeering amid a heavy police deployment.
Throughout the afternoon, the area witnessed the detention of dozens of individuals, including social activist Anjali Damania, who had gathered to participate in the demonstrations. In the evening, the Thackeray cousins and their supporters gathered near the iconic ground to condemn what they characterized as dictatorial actions by the central and state governments, while demanding the immediate release of those detained.
The political leaders and workers subsequently staged a demonstration outside the Shivaji Park police station, where the majority of the detainees had been transported. Aaditya Thackeray, accompanied by his brother Tejas Thackeray, alleged that police officers had attacked and manhandled party workers, including women, claiming that the saree of a female worker was torn during the commotion.
In addition to Aaditya Thackeray and Amit Thackeray, the newly filed police FIR specifically names MNS leader Sandeep Deshpande alongside Shiv Sena (UBT) figures Varun Sardesai and Mahesh Sawant.