For the third successive day, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) put its vandalism prowess on display over the outsiders' issue. This time, the Income Tax office — located at Sadhu Vaswani chowk — came under attack for allegedly giving preference to the candidates from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar for job recruitment. On Saturday, the MNS attacked MIT, Kothrud and on Sunday, MNS workers had created ruckus at the exam centres of Ammunition Factory, Khadki.

On Monday, a group of about 20 MNS workers, including a few women, entered the IT office at 3.15 pm. And without wasting any time, they went on a smashing spree. They broke the glasses of the windows and doors and tried to damage the furniture. The job done, the workers then walked out of the office without making any noise. When the attack took place, the interviews of the candidates for the posts of peon, night watchman and notice servers were being conducted at the office. Undettered by the attack, IT officials said they will continue their future interviews under police protection.

The MNS has even threatened to intensify its attacks in the coming days if the government offices or any other establishments continue to give preference to outsiders over Marathi manoos. Ravindra Dhangekar, MNS leader in PMC, said, “If the government offices, educational institutes or any other establishments continue to give preference to the outsiders, we will intensify our attacks. We want local people to get jobs first and not outsiders.”

Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax, Abhinay Kumbhar said, “We had given an advertisement in Employment News for recruitment for the posts of peons, night watchmen and notice servers. There are five posts to be filled and we had short-listed 2,000 candidates. Apart from Pune, the interviews are also going to be held in Nashik, Thane and Kolhapur. The Pune interviews which began on Monday will be held till July 22. As per our schedule, we are going to interview the candidates coming from the outside states till Friday.”

“Before the attack, MNS leaders and corporators held talks with us on the first floor. We explained to them what the procedure is and that there is a sizeable chunk of Marathi people short-listed for the posts. However, as soon as they left, a group of MNS workers, entered our office and started breaking the window and door glasses. We had kept some security personnel, but that proved ineffective,” said Kumbhar.

He said despite the disturbance by the attack, the interviews were continued to be held in the evening. “Today, we conducted 200 interviews. We will carry on our interview process under police bandobast.”