2 Arrested For Issuing Death Threats To Sanjay Raut, His MLA Brother

Two men were arrested from a suburb in Mumbai on Saturday, a day after Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut claimed he and his MLA brother Sunil Raut had received death threat calls and asked the Maharashtra government to take them seriously.

The accused duo- one of them an autorickshaw driver and another an interior designing worker-were detained on Friday itself from the eastern suburb of Govandi but the police awaited an official complaint in the case before arresting them, an official said.

Preliminary information suggests that they made the threat calls to the Raut brothers under the influence of alcohol, he said, adding that further investigation is underway.

They were tracked based on the location of their mobile phones and call recordings provided by the Raut brothers, the official said.

Earlier, Sunil Raut had received a call in which the person on the other side threatened to shoot him as well as his brother Sanjay Raut, police said on Friday.

"The government should take it (threat to him and his brother) seriously and not me. The government wants such threats. The matter is with the police and they will have to look into it," Sanjay Raut had told reporters.

Sunil Raut received a threat. I didn't lodge any complaint. We are not worried about it, claimed Mr Raut, who has received threats in the past as well.

Police registered a case against the arrested men under section 506-II (criminal intimidation - threat to cause death or grievous hurt) and other sections of the Indian Penal Code, the official added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)