Dec 28, 1998
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MAHARASHTRA Bazing Crime A woman corporator becomes the victim of a turf war. By Sheela Raval The dispute was over something as trivial as a water pump but the outcome turned out to be shockingly gruesome. On the night of December 14, Mumbai witnessed political vendetta of the worst kind when Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) corporator, Meena Bhagwan More, 35, was doused with kerosene and set on fire by her rivals over a petty issue of a water pipeline connection in a slum colony.
Navi Mumbai police arrested four local Congress workers, Yogendra Pandey, Rakesh Tiwari, Bapi Bhattacharya and Mohamad Kasam, after More named them in her statement before a special magistrate. Bhattacharya's son Kartik claims his father and others have been made political scapegoats. However, a local police officer says the attack on More was a fallout of a turf war between Patil and Naik. He says Patil was believed to have been irked by More's growing clout in the area and her highhanded behaviour with local Congress leaders. Says Naik: "It's sad that the political ambition of local hoodlums has crossed all barriers of decency." Significantly Jaiprakash Chajjed, joint secretary of the Maharashtra Congress Pradesh Committee, has refuted the charge that the accused are Congress workers and has condemned the incident. The episode had sent shockwaves all over the state. Says veteran politician Pandurang Rangnekar of the CPI: "This is the worst kind of politics anyone can indulge in." More's 70-year-old mother Manrabai Nikam, traumatised by the incident, can't understand how politicians who are supposed to serve people could do such an act. She is not alone in her disbelief. |
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More, a first-time corporator from Chichpada slums at Airoli in the Thane-Belapur
industrial belt, had been trying to get a water pump installed near her house for the past
few months. Instead, it was installed some distance away from her house in a
Congress-dominated area without her knowledge. She had protested over its location saying
it passed through a gutter. Since then it had become a prestige issue for the local
political leaders -- the Congress on one side and the newly formed Nagri Vikas Aghadi
(NVA) headed by former state minister and rebel Shiv Sainik Ganesh Naik on the other.
More, owing allegiance to Naik, was caught in the ongoing battle between Naik and D.R.
Patil of the Congress, leaders of the Agri community. Eyewitnesses say More was
intercepted on her way to make a phone call by her assailants on the fateful night. The
attackers questioned her over her threats to cut off water supply connection to the Ganesh
Nagar slum colony, sanctioned by NMMC on the request of Congress leaders. Then they
grabbed her by the hair and set her on fire. Engulfed in fire More screamed but bystanders
rushed to her rescue only after the assailants left. Says a slum dweller of the colony:
"We never imagined that our water tap could almost cost someone's life." 
