Shiv Sena activists burn Yediyurappa's effigy, stop screening of Kannada movie in Kolhapur
Kolhapur, Dec 29: Shiv Sena activists burnt an effigy of Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa and stopped screening of a Kannada movie in Maharashtra's Kolhapur city on Sunday as the dispute over Belgaum flared up once again.
The state transport bus services from Kolhapur to Karnataka were also suspended from Saturday midnight as a precautionary measure, a senior police official said.
Maharashtra claims Belgaum, which has a sizable Marathi-speaking population, but is currently a district of Karnataka.
The decades-old dispute over Belgaum escalated after certain remarks by a Kannada organisation against the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES), which has been fighting for the merger of Marathi-speaking villages of Karnataka into the western state.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray earlier this month appointed ministers Chhagan Bhujbal and Eknath Shinde as co-ordinators to oversee his government's efforts to expedite the case related to the boundary dispute with Karnataka.
The case is pending before the Supreme Court since many years.
Various Kannada organisations staged a protest in Belgaum on Saturday by burning the effigy of Thackeray.
In retaliation, the Shiv Sena held a rally in Kolhapur city on Sunday.
Some Sena activists burnt the effigy of Yediyurappa at the central bus stand and stopped screening of a Kannada movie at Apsara Talkies.
The activists also blackened billboards,having Kannada text, of some shopkeepers in Gandhinagar area.
Sena MP Dhairyasheel Mane and former Congress MLA Satej Patil participated in the protest rally.
A large police force was deployed in the central bus stand area.
The Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES), which has been fighting for the merger of 800-odd villages with Maharashtra, recently submitted a memorandum of their demands to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
According to reports in a section of media, some days back, a Karnataka Navnirman Sena leader said that MES leaders should be shot dead on the border between the two states.
Thackeray recently alleged in the Assembly that the BJP-led central government was siding with Karnataka and ignored Maharashtra in the Supreme Court, where a case related to the dispute is going on.
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Man arrested with Rs 2.54-crore heroin in Mumbai
Mumbai (PTI): Police have arrested a man and seized over 500 grams of heroin worth Rs 2.54 crore in the illicit market from him in Mumbai, officials said on Friday.
The police's Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) made the drug seizure in Santacruz in the western suburbs. The operation was conducted by the Kandivali unit of the ANC on Thursday as part of a special crackdown against drug trafficking in the area, they said.
Acting on specific inputs, an ANC team conducted a raid in Santacruz (East) and intercepted a man. During a search, the team recovered 508 grams of high-grade heroin from his possession, an official said.
The seized contraband, a highly addictive, opioid drug derived from morphine, is estimated to be worth Rs 2.54 crore in the international market, he informed.
Following the seizure, a case was registered against the man under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, and he was formally placed under arrest in the early hours of Friday.
The police are currently investigating the source of the drug and trying to identify the intended recipients of the consignment, he said.
