New Delhi: The state police were on its toes Wednesday to thwart any attempt by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) to stir up trouble in front of mosques that loudly played the azaan.
Morning prayers went on smoothly in Mumbai and other cities, the police said, adding that security had been tight since the early hours with random checking of vehicles in the capital.
The Maharashtra Home Department, however, said 135 mosques of the total 1,140 in Mumbai had played the azaan on loudspeakers before 6 am. Department officials said appropriate action would be taken against these mosques that violated the 2005 Supreme Court order which had banned loudspeakers between 10 pm and 6 am.
The state police picked top MNS leaders Yogesh Shete and Ajay Shinde in the morning. Shinde and six others were detained by the Pune Police after they performed a ‘maha aarti’ in the Khalkar Hanuman Temple.
As a precautionary measure, authorities issued more than 1,600 notices under various sections of the Criminal Procedure Code, including 149 (for preventing cognisable offences), to MNS workers and others.
Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said Wednesday that there was peace in Maharashtra. “No protest is happening in the state. No illegal loudspeakers are blaring in the state.”
Deriding MNS chief Raj Thackeray’s ‘hard Hindutva’ stand, Raut said: “Bal Thackeray and Veer Savarkar are the ones who taught Hindutva to the country. Shiv Sena’s school of Hindutva is original.”
MNS chief Raj Thackeray on Tuesday evening renewed his call for playing the ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ in front of mosques that did not stop playing azaan on loudspeakers.
Thackeray had given a deadline to mosques to take down megaphones by 3 May, a threat he repeated in a provocative speech at Aurangabad on Sunday. Undeterred by legal action for that address, Raj Thackeray told his party workers on Tuesday evening to keep to the plan.
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