MUMBAI, February 23: The air around one of Mumbai's most famed addresses was thick with tension. Male and female police constables hovered around Matoshree, home to Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray. Police vans patrolled the roads at regular intervals, and any and virtually every female passerby was the object of instant suspicion.The threat by the Maharashtra Hotel and Restaurant Ladies' Employees Union (MHARLEU) to gherao Thackeray at his residence on Monday prompted a posse of security personnel to descend on the area. The union, which represents women working as waiters, dancers and singers in the state, is demanding a stop to harassment by the police and excise officials.
Anticipating a huge turnout, the police pulled out all stops to ensure adequate security for the Sena chief. When this reporter spoke to B K Sonavne, the inspector in charge of operations, at the spot he said: "We are expecting around 2,000-2500 women, and since elections are going on, we cannot take any chances." Twenty inspectorsand 200 constables were deployed along the route from Bandra railway station to Matoshree. A nakabandi was also imposed at Dharavi, Nirmal Nagar, Kherwadi and Santacruz. Four police vans with around twenty constables patrolled the area around Bandra railway station. "Prohibitory orders have been clamped and the women will be arrested if they try to hold the morcha," added Sonavne.
The elaborate security was reduced to a farce, though, as instead of the anticipated hordes of women, only a measly 62 trickled in. As the first lot arrived in a bus, the police immediately swooped down on them and herded them off to a blockaded area. But they need not have bothered. The women themselves had no clue why they were there in the first place. Said one of them, "Our bosses told us to come, so we did." They parried questions concerning their bosses, saying if they had not come, they would have lost their jobs.
MHRLEU chief Anand Shetty had been informed on Sunday itself that the women would be arrested if theypersisted in holding the morcha, informed Sonavne. The women, though, were in the dark about this. Their bosses were hiding nearby, they stated, and once the women were assembled, they would go and talk to Thackeray. When an inspector asked them, "But how can Balasaheb solve their problems. Why don't they go to the home minister or chief minister?", the women's stock answer was, "Sahab ko malum hai."
Meanwhile, the police caught some more women at different points along the road and brought them to the area. They were later driven away in a battered luxury bus. "We will take them to Parle police station, give them tea, coffee and then drop them off at the closest railway station," said one inspector.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
