A day after the injured hind leg of the State mounted police horse Shaktiman was amputated, Dehradun police arrested BJP MlA from Mussoorie Ganesh Joshi on Friday on the charge of assaulting the horse during BJP’s Vidhan Sabha gherao rally on March 14. Joshi was produced in the court, Dakrani (Vikasnagar) from where he was remanded to 14 days’ judicial custody. Another BJP party worker, Pramod Bora who had been arrested from Haldwani in Nainital district on Thursday was also produced in the same court and was sent to 14 days’ judicial custody on Friday.
Informing this, SP City Ajay Singh said Joshi was arrested from outside a hotel in Patelnagar area on the basis of an FIR lodged against him and his associates at Nehru Colony police station on Friday morning over the assault on the horse. Sources said that Joshi was questioned and was taken to an undisclosed place by the police.
As reported earlier, police had taken a suo moto initiative over the assault on the horse and a case under sections 429/188/353/147/332/148 of IPC, 7 law criminal amendment act and under section 11 (l) of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act had been registered against MlA Joshi and other BJP members in Nehru Colony Police Station on March 14.
The arrest threw the Opposition BJP in a rage as the State party president and the leader of Opposition in the Assembly Ajay Bhatt termed the arrest as “abduction” of the MlA. “The manner in which Joshi was picked up from outside a hotel suggests he was abducted. Those who picked him up were in plain clothes and it is not clear whether they were police personnel or anti-social elements,” he added. Notably, BJP had earlier demanded withdrawal of cases lodged against its workers, including Joshi, asserting that they were being implicated in false cases at the behest of the State Government, out to browbeat the Opposition into submission.
Defending the arrest, Singh said that Bora along with Joshi was responsible for precipitating the fall of the horse during BJP gherao rally on March 14 which caused grievous injuries to one of its hind legs.
Meanwhile, the injured horse whose fractured hind leg was amputated late last night by a team of doctors at the police lines has been provided with an artificial leg. The horse is constantly under the watch of the doctors and over two dozen police personnel at the police lines, police sources said.