Maharashtra Youth Congress chief Kunal Raut arrested for defacing PM Narendra Modi's poster

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Maharashtra Youth Congress president Kunal Raut was on Sunday arrested by the police for allegedly defacing a poster of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Nagpur.

The incident took place near the Zilla Parishad office in Maharashtra's Nagpur on Saturday, an from Sadar police station said. Kunal Raut is also the son of former state energy minister and Congress leader Nitin Raut, newswire PTI reported.

The Youth Congress leader and a few others allegedly defaced a poster of PM Modi with black paint, erased "Modi Sarkar" on it and wrote "Bharat Sarkar", he said.

Raut was arrested from Kuhi town, about 40 km from Nagpur, on Sunday afternoon, the official said.

However, a Congress leader claimed that Raut was arrested abruptly.

He said a notice was issued to the Youth Congress leader, via WhatsApp, under Section 41-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) on Sunday, instructing Raut to appear before police at noon on Monday. But he was taken into custody on Sunday itself, he added.

Earlier in the day, Maharashtra BJP MLA Ganpat Gaikwad, who is accused of shooting and injuring a Shiv Sena leader and one more person inside a police station in Ulhasnagar in Thane district, has been booked in a Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act case on the complaint of a villager, a police official said on Sunday.

Gaikwad had pumped six bullets into Kalyan Shiv Sena leader Mahesh Gaikwad and also injured the latter's associate Rahul Patil late night inside the cabin of the Hill Line police station's senior inspector. The three-time Kalyan East MLA has been charged with attempt to murder and other offences in the case.

"On the complaint of a resident of Dwarli village on Saturday, Ganpat Gaikwad and seven others have been charged under sections of the Indian Penal Code and SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act," a Hill Line police station official said.

As per the complainant, she was subjected to caste-based abuse by Ganpat Gaikwad and the others on January 31.

"A probe into the complaint of the woman, who is a land owner, is underway," the station house officer of Hill Line police station said. (With inputs from PTI)