Mumbai crackdown: State SP chief arrested | Your say

SNUBBED: Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh declined to meet state SP chief Abu Asim Azmi.

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Keywords: Abu Asim Azmi, Vilasrao Deshmukh

Mumbai: President of the Maharashtra unit of Samajwadi Party, Abu Asim Azmi, and some of his supporters were arrested in Mumbai late on Sunday evening after they protested outside Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh’s residence against violence in the state.

Azmi and others had gone to meet Deshmukh at his residence in south Mumbai, said city Samajwadi Party youth president Farooq Ghosi, who too was among those arrested.

"We wanted to apprise him of the recent attacks on our party men and the north Indians by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena activists and how police remained a mute spectator," he said.

When Deshmukh declined to meet them, the angry delegation squatted in protest outside ‘Varsha’, the Chief Minister's official residence at Malabar Hill.

When they refused to disperse, police took them into custody for unlawful assembly in a high-security VIP zone.

The Malabar Hill, which faces the Arabian Sea, is home to, apart from the Chief Minister, the governor, state ministers, high court judges, foreign diplomatic corps, top civil and police officials, industrialists and others.

Sunday saw violent clashes between MNS and SP activists in different parts of the state following MNS chief Raj Thackeray's controversial remarks.