Two suspended MlAs, who were among a group of persons that assaulted a traffic police officer on the Vidhan Bhavan premises here on Tuesday, surrendered to the city police on Thursday.
A day after they stayed put in the immunity zone of the State legislature and succeeded in evading their arrest, the two suspended MlAs — including Virar-Vasai land mafia don Hitendra Thakur’s son Kshitij Thakur of the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA) and Ram Kadam of the MNS — presented themselves before the Crime Branch Unit-I at Mumbai Police headquarters on Thursday.
later in the day, the two arrested MlAs were produced before a city court which remanded them in police custody till March 22.
Coming as it did on the heels of the suspension of five MlAs — including Rajan Salvi (Shiv Sena), Pradeep Jaiswal (Independent) and Jaykumar Rawal (BJP) — in connection with the assault on police officer Sachin Suryavanshi, the surrender to the police of Kshitij and Kadam was very much on cards.
On Tuesday night, the Marine Drive Police Station, registered an FIR against Thakur, Kadam and 14 others for assaulting Assistant Police Insp0ector Suryvanshi, attached to the Worli Traffic Police division inside Vidhan Bhavan.
The assault on API Suryavanshi was a fallout of Monday’s incident — which saw Suryavanshi stop the vehicle of Kshitij and fine him for over-speeding on the Worli Sea link. Kshitij had been fined by Suryavanshi travelling at a speed of 101 km per hour on the Worli Sea link, where the stipulated speed limit is 50 kmph.
The incident, which had taken place when the errant MlA was on his way to the State Assembly, had triggered vociferous protests in the State Assembly where Kshitij moved a breach of privilege notice against API Suryavanshi, who had been summoned to the legislature to present his side of the story.
Having spotted Suryavanshi in the visitors’ gallery, some of the five now suspended MlAs, including Kshitij, had rushed outside the House and allegedly managed to catch hold of the police officer and thrashed him on the first floor of the Vidhan Bhavan building.