Mumbai: Senior Shiv Sena UBT leader Sanjay Raut has accused Maharashtra deputy chief minister and home minister Devendra Fadnavis of ‘shielding’ the drug mafia in the state asking how the Deputy Chief Minister cannot be aware of the drug menace in the state. He was referring to the recent seizure of mephedrone worth Rs 300 crore by the Mumbai Police.
“Fadnavis knows everything about the opposition. How come he doesn't know about the drug mafia? He is shielding the drug mafia and those who are taking ‘haftas' (protection money)',” he said on Friday before participating in a march in Nashik to protest the growing menace of drugs in Maharashtra.
The march was organised on the backdrop of a seizure of 151 kg of mephedrone worth Rs 300 crore by the Sakinaka police in Mumbai, who also arrested several persons from different cities during an operation. A drug manufacturing unit located in Nashik district was also busted during the probe. Lalit Patil (37), who is considered a key player in the racket, was arrested near Bengaluru on October 17. He had earlier escaped from Pune’s Sassoon General Hospital on October 2.
Calling Lalit Patil, a main accused in the Rs 300-crore mephedrone seizure case, the tip of the iceberg, Raut said, “In fact, the friends of drug mafias are sitting in the assembly. It's the plight of Maharashtra that we have such a home minister (Fadnavis),” Raut said.
However, Fadnavis has said that Patil was arrested during the MVA government led by Uddhav Thackeray. But Patil, who was Nashik city president of Shiv Sena in 2020, was not being interrogated in order to deflate the case, he alleged.
“Why Lalit Patil was not interrogated at that time? Was the then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray responsible for this or the then Home Minister Anil Deshmukh? Under whose pressure Lalit was not interrogated?” Fadnavis asked.
Fadnavis claimed that when Patil was arrested on November 10, 2020, the latter was the Nashik city chief of Shiv Sena (Undivided). “After his arrest, Patil was sent to PCR (police custody remand) for 14 days, but he was immediately admitted to Sassoon Hospital in Pune during his PCR period. The then government did not move any application in the court to interrogate Patil,” he said.
