Bengaluru man nabbed for threatening Maha Minister Aditya Thackeray

Mumbai, Dec 23 (IANS) A Bengaluru-based man has been arrested for allegedly threatening Maharashtra Tourism Minister Aditya Thackeray, son of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, police said on Thursday.

The accused has been identified as Jaisingh Rajput, 34 and a self-proclaimed fan of the late Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who was found dead in his Bandra home on June 14, 2020.

Moving swiftly, a Mumbai Police Cyber Cell team picked up Rajput from Bengaluru on December 18 and then brought here on a transit remand. He has been sent to police custody for 3 days.

According to police, he had called Thackeray Jr. at least thrice but when the minister did not respond, on December 8, he sent him an abusive and threatening WhatsApp message.

Doling out abuses in the message, Rajput blamed him for the "murder" of the late actor, saying - "Youkilled Sushant Singh Rajput", and made the death threats to Minister Thackeray.

Taking serious cognizance as the issue figured in the Maharashtra legislature on Thursday, Home Minister Dilip Walse-Patil said that a state-level Special Investigation Team will be formed to probe the matter.

When the matter came up in the assembly, Minority Affairs Minister Nawab Malik also got up and said that he had also received several such threats in the past and suspected the involvement of the same group that had murdered rationalists like Dr. Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare.

"The way in which Aditya Thackeray has been threatened, we suspect whether it is linked with the same organisations that killed Dabholkar and Pansare. We have already demanded an investigation into this," Malik said.

Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis supported the demand and sought a probe into such incidents of threats to ministers of the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi.

Meanwhile, Rajput has been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and IT Act, and further investigations are underway.