Four arrested for attack on maulvi

Eyewitnesses say group assaulted religious leader outside Undri mosque; police on the lookout for 3 more suspects

Kondhwa police on Monday morning arrested four suspects, who allegedly attacked the maulvi of a masjid in Undri on Sunday night, near the Bishop’s School in the same area. According to eyewitness Abdul Sattar, who was at the Masjid-daei- Isha to offer prayers at the time, Maulvi Ashfaq Ansari and his brother were waiting to catch an autorickshaw to Kondhwa when five or six men arrived and surrounded them.

“The attackers suddenly assaulted Ansari with sticks, without saying a word. When his brother tried to pacify them, he too was beaten up,” he said. Another eyewitness, who wished to remain anonymous, told Mirror, “The assailants fled soon after the attack.

We took Ansari sahab to the hospital immediately.” Ansari has been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Inamdar Hospital in Kondhwa. The assailants have been identified as Deepal Gokhale (19) of Gholse Vasti, Amit Harpale (19) of Phursungi, Duttaray Rakh (20) of Pisoli and Atul Kad (27) of Undri.

Sattar opined, “It seemed that Ansari was attacked because of his religious appearance, sporting a beard and cap — especially because the culprits did not initially attack his brother, who was clean shaven.” Police Inspector S D Pochorkar of Kondhwa police station (PS) said, “We received a tip-off and arrested the four on Monday morning. Three others suspects are yet to be nabbed.”

All four have been booked under Section 307 (Attempt to murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). They will be produced in the Lashkar court in Camp on Tuesday. Zahid Sheikh, president of Maharashtra Action Committee, said, “This was an attempt to bring disharmony among two communities.

We will not let this happen — we have appealed to our community to not react to this incident and instead stay peaceful. We will not let the perpetrators succeed in their objective of bringing unrest to our city.”

On Saturday night, derogatory posts about Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Sambhaji Maharaj and late Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray were uploaded onto social networking site Facebook, leading to incidents of violence across the city, like stone pelting and damaging property, through Sunday.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Law & Order) Sanjay Kumar said, “We are trying to track the URL and IP address of the person/s who uploaded these posts. It takes some time, since Facebook servers are located in the US. However, if the culprit used a proxy server for the same, the tracking will be more difficult. We are doing our best to nab the offenders.”

This was an attempt to bring disharmony among 2 communities. We have appealed to our community to not react, and stay peaceful