15 booked for beating man who criticised minister

Fifteen people, some of them workers of a political party, were booked for allegedly assaulting a 50-year-old man for criticising Maharashtra Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar before the media here, the police said today.

The man, Praveen Shantilal Surana, filed a complaint alleging assault by a group of people yesterday.

Based on the complaint, the Warora police registered an FIR against 15 people, including Warora Municipal Council's co-opted member from the BJP, Baba Bhagade, and some workers of a political party, a police official said.

They were booked under IPC sections related to voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation, he said.

Surana claimed Mungantiwar, also the guardian minister of Chandrapur district, was slated to inaugurate a shed at the Mahatma Gandhi Garden here yesterday morning but left without doing so.

Later, Surana, talking to the electronic media, criticised the minister, saying he did not spare time for the structure's inauguration.

Angered by his comments against Mungantiwar, a group of people, including Bhagade, allegedly thrashed him and warned him of dire consequences if he criticised the minister in the future, Surana said in the complaint.

Meanwhile, Surana, who suffered bruises and some other minor injuries, was treated at a hospital in Warora and later discharged.