Mourners attack cops, damage vehicles during funeral

A mob damaged police vehicles and hurled stones in suburban Chembur on Tuesday during a funeral procession of a 44-year-old man who had committed suicide allegedly due to tardy investigation by police into kidnapping of his teenage daughter, officials said.

The incident occurred in afternoon when the funeral procession of Pancharam Rithadiya was moving towards a crematorium in Chembur from his residence in Kural (East).

A police official said some mourners trailing the procession suddenly tried to block the road at Umarshi Bappa Chowk in Chembur.

As police personnel tried to remove the protesters, some of them ran to a nearby under-construction building and hurled stones, injuring two police constables and an officer of Traffic Police, they said.

Some protesters damaged around four vehicles, including a police van, a taxi, a car, besides 10-12 motorcycles and three auto rickshaws, a police official said.

Eye-witnesses claimed that people got provoked when a policeman shoved a woman mourner with a stick.

Another police official said they have identified four persons who they suspected had instigated others.

Rithadiya had committed suicide last week by jumping in front of a train at Tilaknagar railway station in Mumbai, apparently because he was not happy with the probe into kidnapping of his 17-year-old daughter, sources said.

After his death, Wadala GRP registered an offence of abatement to suicide against five persons.

Police later detained some 20-22 people and were taken to different police stations.

Meanwhile, NCP chief spokesperson Nawab Malik blamed local BJP leaders and workers for the attack on the police personnel.

"People from the area were being provoked systematically during the last four-five days during poll period. Local BJP leaders were playing with sentiments of the people for political benefit, leading to today's incident," Malik stated.