"Thackeray should be immediately arrested and sent to Beur Adarsh jail here," said RLM-constituent RJD president Laloo Prasad Yadav, who was himself in jail for a couple of months recently in connection with a conspiracy angle case of the fodder scam.

"A ban should be immediately imposed on the fundamentalist Shiv Sena...We have done this to tackle the ultra-Left menace in Bihar," he said, adding the Sainik's "sinister" activities have immensely harmed India's image and its bilateral ties with Pakistan.

"The country is not safe in BJP's hands," he alleged.

Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav took serious exception to Union Home Minister L K Advani's meeting with Thackeray in Mumbai on Thursday to "placate" him and said "it is quite unbecoming of a HomeMinister to visit a person who is violating the law."

JD president Sharad Yadav, here on a three-day visit, said that Thackeray should have been arrested the day Srikrishna Committee report indicted him in the 1992-93 Mumbai riots. "His arrest should not be delayed even for a minute."

Asked whether he favoured banning of Sena, Sharad Yadav said, "let Bal Thackeray be put behind bars first....Moreover Sena is a small entity having its base only in Mumbai."

Asked about the security of the visiting Pak team, Mulayam Singh Yadav said it is the duty of the government to guarantee safety to the players of the visiting team and any laxity will be a matter of condemnation.

The vandalising of cricket pitches by Shiv Sena in Delhi and Muzaffarnagar had sent "shock waves and sullied India's image," Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Prasad Yadav said.