Apologise for Bal Thackeray's arrest in 2000: Raut

A day after senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar said it was a "mistake" to arrest late Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray in 2000, Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Saturday sought his apology over the arrest.

Taking to Twitter, Raut, who is Sena's Rajya Sabha member and party's chief whip in Parliament, said, "You took so many years to realise that it was a mistake to arrest Balasaheb Thackeray. If your tears are real, you should apologise over his arrest."

Ajit Pawar had on Friday said that some senior NCP leaders had insisted on the arrest of Balasaheb Thackeray in 2000, despite the opposition from some others leaders like himself. "It was a mistake," he had said.

Thackeray was arrested during the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra for allegedly inciting communal hatred through Sena's mouthpiece 'Saamana'. Thackeray's alleged inflammatory writings were published in 'Saamana' after the Babri mosque demolition in 1992, followed by serial blasts in Mumbai that had killed over 300 people.

Recently, Sena president Uddhav Thackeray had also recalled the arrest of his father and said Maharashtra doesn't appreciate politics of "revenge and vengeance".

"My father was not arrested for corruption or any irregularity but he was held for protecting Hindus in Mumbai and Maharashtra during the 1992-93 riots," he had said while addressing Sena workers in Mumbai.