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An Indian lawmaker and his supporters have been caught throwing mud and slime over a local engineer before attempting to lash him to a bridge in an apparent protest at the state of disrepair of a local highway.
Nitesh Rane, 37, a politician with the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly and his supporters were filmed carrying out the now-viral protest early Thursday on a bridge near the Mumbai-Goa highway. The engineer in question has been identified as Prakash Shedekar.
#WATCH: Congress MLA Nitesh Narayan Rane and his supporters throw mud on engineer Prakash Shedekar at a bridge near Mumbai-Goa highway in Kankavali, when they were inspecting the potholes-ridden highway. They later tied him to the bridge over the river. pic.twitter.com/B1XJZ6Yu6z
— ANI (@ANI) July 4, 2019
According to NDTV, two people have been arrested in connection with the incident and police are looking for Rane.
“People are suffering it daily… Now, you also experience it,” the lawmaker reportedly said, before giving an ominous warning about arming himself ahead of future daily inspections of the pothole-ridden highway.
“Now I will myself oversee the repair work on this highway, with a stick in my hand. Every day at 7 am I will reach here. We have the medicine to tackle their arrogance.”
His father, former Congress leader Narayan Rane, issued an apology on behalf of his son, saying that while the protesters were right to demonstrate on the highway woes, such violence “is not correct” and he does not support it.
Nitesh Rane has some form for staging ostentatious protests; he purportedly threw dead fish at a local government officer in 2017 while complaining about conditions for fishermen in the region.
Thursday’s incidents come just a week after another politician was reprimanded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for assaulting a municipal officer with a cricket bat during an argument over a planned demolition.
