Sena backs cop Patil, claims she is being hounded by Munaf Hakeem

Saamna cites Patil penalising Hakeem's brother for rash driving as reason.

The Shiv Sena Friday came out in support of Police Inspector Sujata Patil accused of writing an allegedly communal poem.

The Sena in party organ Saamna stated that the inspector is being hounded at the insistence of State Minority Commission chairman Munaf Hakeem whose brother was allegedly penalised by Patil for rash driving. Hakeem denied the charge and stated his brother does not drive a scooter.

The Saamna claimed that on August 8 Patil penalised Hakeem's brother Rafeeq Hakeem at Sion for driving a scooter rashly without wearing a helmet. The paper alleges that Hakeem tried to influence the inspector by asking whether she knew who his brother was.

Munaf Hakeem, who was the then NCP general secretary, was made the chairman of the state minority commission later that month. Interestingly he had also complained about Patil chasing and stopping his official vehicle because he was wearing a skull cap and sporting a beard. Saamna claimed that Hakeem had at the time threatened the inspector.

"For the past four months Hakeem has been trying to take revenge on Patil. He is now leading the campaign to create a controversy over Patil's poem," Saamna stated.

"The police have full right to charge those who break rules. However, accusing me of raking up a controversy is absurd. I have nothing to do with the entire matter," Hakeem said. A poem written by Sujata Patil had appeared in the police department's in-house magazine Samvaad in its October 2012 issue.

The poem terms Azad Maidan protesters as "snakes" and "traitors" whose hands should have been "chopped off". There have been complaints that the poem is communal in nature.

A petition was also filed in the Bombay High Court Thursday seeking a direction to the city police to register an FIR against Patil. Patil denied the charges. "My poem is not against any religion or sect. It is only about the Azad Maidan incident. I only believe in two castes. One who is patriotic and one who is a traitor," Patil is quoted as saying in Saamna.

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