Pune:
Senior Shiv Sena leader Neelam Gorhe and Uddhav Thakeray's aide Milind Narvekar have been booked by the Pune police for criminal conspiracy and provoking riots.
The police had tapped their telephone conversation after the removal of the statue of Dadoji Konddev, considered the 'guru' of Chhatrapati Shivaji, from the Lal Mahal in Pune on Monday.
Sources have told NDTV that during the conversation, Narvekar, who is Shiv Sena executive President Uddhav Thackeray's personal secretary, allegedly explained to Neelam Gorhe how to carry out acts of violence during the Shiv Sena bandh on Tuesday to protest against the removal of the statue.
During the bandh, agitators pelted stones at buses and left eight of them damaged. Some Sena workers were also detained by the police as a preventive measure.
The agitators also tried to disrupt rail traffic at Lonavala on Mumbai-Pune section of the central railway, sources said. The Sinhgad Express, which runs from Pune to Mumbai, was stopped for a while at Lonavala.
Lal Mahal, in the heart of Pune, was the childhood home of Chhatrapati Shivaji and currently has statues of a young Shivaji and his mother, Jijabai. The municipal corporation plans to add a statue of Shivaji's father, Shahaji Maharaj, to replace the one that was removed on Monday.
The statue had become a bone of contention following persistent demand by pro-Maratha outfit 'Sambhaji Brigade' opposing its presence at the Lal Mahal, along with sculptures of Jijabai and a young Shivaji. The Maratha community believes that a section of historians have misrepresented Dadoji Konddev as Shivaji's teacher.