Dinesh Kamath's news item ' TMC official had sent water tankers to Airoli for Bapu’s meet, suspended' that was published in Newsband

 TMC official had sent water tankers to Airoli for Bapu’s meet, suspended

By Dinesh Kamath

NAVI MUMBAI: Municipal commissioner RA Rajeev has suspended a junior engineer of Thane Municipal Corporation’s water department for dispatching eight water tankers for the Holi celebrations organized by self-proclaimed spiritual guru Asaram Bapu at Navi Mumbai on Monday. The name of the junior engineer is Prakash Katkadi.

The water from the tankers Katkadi provided was used by Asaram Bapu to spray on his followers who had assembled in large numbers at a ground in Airoli. The congregation was held at the Patni compound area within Navi Mumbai municipal corporation jurisdiction. Katkadi had sent the water tankers in spite of the instructions issued by the state government saying that no water tankers should be provided to Asaram Bapu since he had misused 50,000 litres of water for Holi revelry at Kasturchand Park in Nagpur a few days back.

It seems Katkadi had sent the tankers after coming under political pressure. Also it was drinking water which was sent by Katkadi.

Asaram Bapu was also criticized for provoking his followers at Navi Mumbai into pelting stones at media persons and injuring some of them.