Mumbai: Maharashtra Government will fix responsibility on those political parties who called the Bharat bandh on Thursday and recover from them losses caused to public and private property, Home Minister RR Patil said.
"The process of registering the panchnamas of the loss has been initiated. The police department has been asked to assess the loss of the public and private properties due to attacks on the buses, disrupting public life at various places in the state," he told reporters after the NDA and Left parties observed a one-day bandh to protest steep hike in petrol prices.
"We have recovered such types of losses from the parties responsible and compensated to the concerned on some previous occasions. Collectors and superintendents of police have been directed to prepare reports from their respected districts (about the damage)," Patil said.
The Home Minister further said that his department would volunteer to provide information on direct and indirect loss caused due to the bandh if anybody wishes to move the court.
"Though the government cannot initiate any action for the indirect loss to industrial and commercial establishments and loss of daily wages, recovery can be done by prosecuting the parties in the courts," he added.
Patil said that police arrested hundreds of people with criminal cases against them on the eve of the bandh.
As many as 2273 preventive arrests were made in Mumbai yesterday by police, while the figure in rest of the state was 1815, Patil said.
Terming the shutdown as "peaceful and partially successful", the home minister said there was rasta rokos at 17 places in the state and at two places in Mumbai and Pune.
Altogether 101 buses and other vehicles were damaged in Mumbai alone where 50 cases have been filed in this regard and 142 people arrested, whereas outside Mumbai, 40 buses and vehicles were damaged, 24 cases filed and 41 arrests have been made, he informed.
PTI
