The transfer of controversial Assistant Commissioner ofPolice Vasant Dhoble, known as “Hockey-Man” and “Singham” in Mumbai's Page-3circuit, is snowballing into a major political issue “ with Shiv Sena andMaharashtra Navnirman Sena coming out in his support.
Dhoble, the ACB of Vakola Division, was transferred as ACPof Control Room, after a hawker died of heart attack during an eviction drive.
The Congress-NCP Democratic Front government “ which choseto transfer Dhoble “ finds itself in a difficult situation.
The Home department is with the NCP “ and the Home MinisterR R Patil “ has preferred to be guarded, so far, but for the Congress, theresponse has been mix. While Congress MP from Mumbai North West Priya Dutt,Priya Dutt spoke to Chief Minister, Prithviraj Chavan and demanded the transferof Dhoble, two Congress MLAs, Kripashankar Singh, who is a former MumbaiCongress chief and Krishna Hegde sought action against the police officer.
Shiv Sena leader Diwakar Raote said today that Dhoble'sstyle of functioning could be questionable, but his actions for implementingthe rule of law should be supported. "Since the time he was with theSocial Service Branch, Dhoble has come down heavily on anti-social and illegalactivities. Even now, he was taking action against hawkers who occupy publicspace illegally. The hawker died a natural death. Authorities should havewaited for the cause of death to be ascertained before taking action against asenior police officer," Raote said.
MNS MLA, Bala Nandgaokar said: “We support such responsibleofficials. His (Dhoble’s) actions were portrayed as rowdy earlier too when hecracked down on pubs in Bandra but nobody talked about the nuisance theycaused. What happened in case of the officer is wrong. We will request theChief Minister to rethink on this decision and deploy him back to his previouspost.”
In a way support is building up for Dhoble - and people arerallying behind him. The social networking sites are abuzz - with comments inhis favour as well as against him.
Patil had on Saturday ordered Dhoble’s transfer in the wakeof the death of a 42-year-old fruit vendor Madan Jaiswal, who collapsed anddied while trying to escape from a chase by a team of police personnel led bythe controversial ACP that was trying to evict the hawkers squatting outsidethe Santa Cruz Railway Station on Friday evening.
Jaiswal’s 18-year-old son Shriram, who was also with hisfather at that time, had claimed that Dhoble had kicked and hit his father witha lathi while trying to flee. However, the police denied that the ACP hadwielded his lathi, let alone hitting Jaiswal with the stick during the evictiondrive. Jaiswal had been declared dead on his admission to the nearby V n DesaiHospital. A post-mortem conducted on Jaiswal’s has, meanwhile, revealed thatwhile there was no external injury on his body, he had died of Brainhaemorrhage.
The controversy was so enormous that Mumbai Police chief DrSatyapal Singh had to transfer him, within hours of the incident.
“It was wrong, the way he was functioning,” said Priya Dutt,the MP from Mumbai North West.
She also spoke to top politicians including Chavan and HomePatil after the incident. “This is not a matter of one party.....we are alldemanding action against errant police officer,” she said.
