Set autos of non-Marathis on fire: MNS Chief
MNS chief Raj Thackeray threatened that if MNS sees a non-Marathi driving an auto, their activists would set them on fire. Addressing the gathering on the party's 10th anniversary, he said that over 70% of the permits went to non-Marathis and demanded that they should be given only to the sons-of-the-soil. He added that the BJP-Sena government is as corrupt as the previous Congress-NCP-government.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) is a pro-Marathi political party in Maharashtra, which was founded by Raj Thackeray in March 2006. Raj Thackeray, the nephew of the late Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray, had left the Shiv Sena party in 2006.
Ahead of the 'Marathi Rajbhasha Divas' in Maharashtra, the activists of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena had attacked shops in Thane, which had non-Marathi language boards. The activists had allegedly destroyed and blackened the shops' display boards which were written in languages other than Marathi in Louis Wadi area, Thane. The shopkeepers were warned to change their boards to the Marathi-language in addition to other languages.
Maharashtra Transport Minister Diwakar Raote had announced that the government had decided to issue 1-lakh fresh auto-rickshaw permits by November 2015. But, what irked the applicants were the conditions that, only the people who could speak Marathi and were residents of a locality for 15 years were eligible to apply. The Maharashtra government had stopped the issuance of fresh permits for auto-rickshaws in 1997.
The Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad RTO had announced that eligible candidates for the renewal of auto-rickshaw permits would undergo Marathi proficiency tests. The Pune Regional Transport Officer said that over 3,000 applicants would be tested in Marathi, and asked to show proof that they'd been residing in Maharashtra for over 15 years. Interviews would be conducted for 500 applicants a day, in batches of ten.
MNS had staged a protest against the screening of a non-Marathi movie in the prime-time-slot of 6-9 PM by a movie hall in Borivali. The theatre had screened a Gujarati film in the slot which irked the MNS party.
MNS activists had attacked and tore down the nameplates and display boards of some shops written in English in the Charkop area of Kandivali. The party workers had allegedly pelted stones and damaged two shops and a tuition centre only a day after the workers of Mira Road vandalized a builder's office. Three of the MNS activists for arrested for the acts of violence.
