Mumbai top cop rebuts Ranas’ ‘inhuman treatment’ charge with a 12-sec video clip – Hindustan Times

MUMBAI: Mumbai Police commissioner Sanjay Pandey on Tuesday tweeted a 12-second video clip from the CCTV camera at Khar police station that shows policemen serving tea to Amaravati MP Navneet Kaur Rana and her husband MLA Ravi Rana, his rebuttal to the Lok Sabha member who has complained of “inhuman treatment” in police custody.

“Do we say anything more,” Sanjay Pandey said on Twitter, without directly referring to Navneet Kaur Rana’s complaint. In the video, the couple is seen sitting on a chair and having tea with police officers at the Khar police station.

The couple was arrested on Saturday evening on charges of promoting enmity and sedition, among others, for their insistence on chanting Hanuman Chalisa outside chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s house to remind the Shiv Sena leader of his Hindutva roots. Later, the police also accused them of resisting arrest and charged them with obstructing public servants.

Navneet Rana is presently lodged in Byculla women’s prison while her husband is lodged at the Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai.

After the Bombay high court rejected the Rana couple’s request to cancel the second police case for obstructing public servants on Monday, it emerged that Navneet Rana filed a complaint with Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla alleging “inhuman treatment” in police custody, prompting the Lok Sabha secretariat to seek a report from the Maharashtra government.

After Pandey posted the video on Tuesday afternoon, the Rana couple’s lawyer Rizwan Merchant issued a clarification, saying the Rana couple’s complaint of “ill-treatment” was not in reference to the Khar police station but related to Santacruz police station where the couple were taken to past Saturday midnight.

Merchant said they were taken to Santacruz police station late in the night and were lodged in the lock up of the Santacruz police station till they were taken out on Sunday for producing them before a holiday court. The lawyer said the police refused to serve water to Navneet Kaur and also refused to let her use washroom during this period.

Manjunath Shinge, deputy commissioner of police, Zone 9, denied that the couple were ill-treated at Santacruz police lock up either and asserted that the allegations were false. He said that after completing formalities and recording their statements, the couple was sent to Santacruz police station lock up as the Khar station does not have one shortly after midnight.

On Monday, the Bombay high court frowned at the couple’s insistence on chanting Hanuman Chalisa outside the chief minister’s house, saying “such type of a declaration is certainly in breach of the personal liberty of the other person and therefore the state is justified in carrying apprehension that such act will lead to disturbance in law and order situation.”

Soon after, chief minister Thackeray also broke his silence over the row. At a government event on Monday evening, Thackeray said: “If you want to recite Hanuman Chalisa at my home, do come. But approach with a proper method… if you want to visit by ‘dadagiri’ (bullying), Balasaheb (the late Shiv Sena founder and his father) taught us how to break that ‘dadagiri’.”