A Mumbai court on Tuesday granted anticipatory bail to Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and former Maharashtra minister Anil Parab in a case related to alleged assault on a civic engineer last month.
Mr Parab, an aide of Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray, and six other accused had sought anticipatory bail from the court fearing arrest in the case.
Special judge RN Rokade allowed their anticipatory bail application.
The accused, in their plea filed through advocate Rahul Arote, claimed the Opposition Shiv Sena (UBT) is being targeted by a rival outfit to gain political mileage in Maharashtra.
"The applicants state that with the help of some political leaders and in collusion with government officials, party workers are being implicated in false and frivolous cases," the plea said.
Four persons have already been arrested by the police in the case and they are currently in jail under judicial custody.
The police have shown Mr Parab and six others as wanted accused in the case and hence there is apprehension of their arrest, the application said.
The police had last week registered an FIR (first information report) against Parab and others for allegedly assaulting and threatening an engineer of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
According to the police, the former minister along with other Shiv Sena (UBT) activists took out a morcha in the BMC H-East ward expressing anguish over the demolition of a party office in suburban Bandra last month by the civic body.
A delegation led by Mr Parab later met H-East ward officer Swapna Kshirsagar.
The delegation members asked Kshirsagar to call before them officials who had demolished the party office, as per the FIR.
When some civic staffers came forward, Shiv Sena (UBT) members allegedly assaulted assistant engineer Ajay Patil (42) and also threatened him with dire consequences, it said.
They were subsequently booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of duty) and 506-2 (criminal intimidation).
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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