The Aftermath of Sharad Pawar residence’s mob-attack !
A lot happened over the past week. NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar’s South Mumbai residence Silver Oak bungalow was attacked by a mob of aggressive state transport workers. They hurled shoes, chappals & stones at Pawar’s residence and if a Cabinet Minister is to be believed, they had plans to physically attack Pawar. But thank god, it was prevented by the grace and efforts of Joint CP (L & O) Vishwas Nangare Patil; in actual sense a calamity was averted. Thank You, Vishwas ji, for your ‘deft handling’ of the situation…Felt proud that Mumbai is in safe hands after reading the papers today.
But as usual, I have a few questions which I am sure most of you would agree with me. Number 1, how long ago has the security audit done of Silver Oak? There are two Rajya Sabha Members staying in this house and one of them is a party supremo and the most important person of this MVA Government and a patriarch of Maharashtra politics. Has the security audit being done of Silver Oak by the Home Department on a regular basis? I agree, such incidents don’t occur everyday, but auditing the security arrangements of VVIP’s is a must every month, I feel.
Secondly, does Silver Oak have Vital Installations in place? Google the concept. If my information is correct, Mantralaya, Varsha Bungalow and CP office have their ‘vital installations’ in place to avoid untoward incidents. If the above 3 places are important, even Silver Oak is as important. SO vital installations are a must and Silver Oak has to fall in that category, if already not! Thirdly, again if my information serves me correctly, I heard (I can be wrong also) when this incident occurred every top police officer of the Police Department including the Minister was attending a program. Now please tell me how ‘safe’ it is to gather the most important people, especially in a city like Mumbai, in one place at one time? I feel few of them should have left behind to guard the city. Now if Pawar’s residence is attacked, anything can happen in Maharashtra. So Home Minister sir, please make sure we don’t have everyone, especially cops at top posts, in one place at the same time.
Fourthly, Zone 2 in which Silver Oak falls, is home to many other big corporates and politicians. The Home Department did not have a permanent DCP in place. Additional charge was given. We all know that when a babu is given an additional charge, tell me, will he be more ‘active’ in his parent zone or a zone which is an additional ‘burden’ to him? Compromise especially on DCP’s postings, and keeping it vacant or giving additional charge in Mumbai is a strict NO NO for me. Now you have given permanent charge to someone now, but newspaper headlines read that DCP and Sr PI shunted, actually the DCP was relieved from his additional charge and only the Sr Pi was punished rightly!
Fifth and most important point: I have seen cavalry when Sharad Pawar travels in Mumbai or outside by road. I think Pawar has been allotted Y or Z (sorry couldn’t access exact information) category security, right? Where were they when the mob entered the premises? All I could see, thanks to the media, was only a couple of policemen trying to stop the mob. It was after 5 or 10 minutes that police personnel arrived at the scene. And last very cheap question, when Saheb himself is in town there are a number of karyakarta’s gathered outside just to have an audience with him. Where were they that day?
Anyway, what is done is done. We have to protect our politicians and important personalities from any kind of such mob attacks. If it was a planned event, just like when PM Modi had visited Punjab and was forced to stand on the bridge with limited security (remember that Channi incident na), I hope this event wasn’t planned and it was just an ‘Aakrosh’ of state transport workers. Rest inquiry has been set by the Home MInister, let’s have hope and keep fingers crossed!
Will conclude with what I saw on the TV. I saw tears in the eyes of Surpiya Sule when one of the women protestors came face-to-face with her and told her ‘vyatha’ in 2 to 3 minutes. When will this Government think about the protestors like this and get them out of their misery, remains my moot question.
Vikrant Hemant Joshi.
