Man of 'unsound mind' held for defacing Meenatai Thackeray statue in police custody till Sep 20

Mumbai, Sep 18 (PTI) A Mumbai court on Thursday remanded a man, held for allegedly defacing a statue of late Meenatai, wife of Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray, to police custody till September 20 after police said they need to find the motive behind the act by the person of "unsound mind”.

Police claimed the accused, Upendra Pawaskar, had been living alone in the Dadar area for many years and was "mentally unsound".

Pawaskar was produced before a Dadar court which remanded him to police custody till September 20.

He was arrested on Wednesday evening after police scanned CCTV cameras as part of their probe to trace the accused, hours after the statue of Meenatai Thackeray at Shivaji Park in Dadar was found defaced with oil paint.

The police told the court the accused had brought red colour in a box and threw it somewhere, and they needed to find the container.

They need to find out the motive behind the act and if someone else was also involved in the statue defacement, the police argued while seeking the man's custody.

Pawaskar has a previous record of assault cases at the Dadar police station in addition to two to three other non-cognizable offences, the police submitted.

The statue desecration came to light when an onlooker spotted red oil paint on the bust and the pedestal around 6.30 am, triggering tension in the area. Meenatai Thackeray, who died in 1995, is a widely respected personality in Maharashtra, especially among Shiv Sena and Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders and workers.

The accused has been booked under section 298 (injuring or defiling a place of worship with the intent to insult the religion of any class of persons) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) at the Shivaji Park police station. PTI AVI DC RSY