Mumbai: The Mumbai Crime Branch has arrested a man from Pune for allegedly issuing death threats to Sharad Pawar, the founder and president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
Sagar Barve, the accused, is working in the data feeding and analytics section at a private firm, a Mumbai police official said on Monday.
According to police, the accused had created two fake social media accounts to send threatening messages to Pawar, “The Mumbai Crime Branch, which was probing the case, brought Barve to Mumbai. He was presented in court and has been remanded in police custody till Tuesday,” the official said.
The NCP, on June 9, claimed 82-year-old Pawar received a message on social media threatening him with a fate similar to anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar, a rationalist who was shot dead in Pune on August 20, 2013.
The Mumbai Police had registered a case against him regarding this anonymous death threat to Pawar, under sections 153(A), 504 and 506(2) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had directed the police to provide security for the former CM Sharad Pawar. Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis reacted to the issue by saying that although there are ideological differences with the NCP, issuing threats won't be tolerated.
Sharad Govindrao Pawar has served as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra for four terms and has also served in the Union Council Of Ministers as the Minister of Defence in the Cabinet of P.V Narsimha Rao and Minister of Agriculture in the Cabinet of Manmohan Singh.
with inputs from IANS