Home Minister,police chief should quit: Raj Thackeray

The BJP has also called for a silent protest march against the violence from Metro Cinema on Saturday.

Both parties have claimed that the police had prior information and warning regarding the violence but failed to act.

At a press conference on Friday,Thackeray read out two letters — dated August 9 and August 14 — in Hindi addressed to the Mumbai police commissioner warning that members of a ‘Salim Lightwala gang’ were preparing to create trouble in Mumbai.

“R R Patil and Arup Patnaik should resign as they failed to handle the situation. We will take out a protest march from Girgaum Chowpatty on Tuesday ,” said Thackeray.

He said Patil had failed to understand the department and questioned why he had been reinstated to the department he had to give up in the aftermath of the 26/11 terror attacks. BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandari said the police carry out “preventive detention” in case of political rallies but took no such action last Saturday.