Youth held for making threat calls to Sanjay Raut and MLA brother in Mumbai

The accused did not make any call himself but had allegedly masterminded it, police said.

Mumbai:Maharashtra police have arrested a youth on charges of making threat calls to Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut and his brother, MLA Sunil Raut.

The accused, identified as Mayur Shinde is reportedly close to Sunil Raut. He masterminded the incident though he did not make the call himself, police sources said.

Around six days back, Sunil Raut received a call giving death threat to him and Sanjay. The caller had asked Sunil to ask Sanjay Raut to stop holding morning press conferences or else both would get shot. An audio clipping of this also went viral, sources said.

After getting the call, Sunil filed a complaint before Kanjurmarg police station while Sanjay Raut had written to state home minister Devendra Fadnavis complaining about the incident. He said that the issue of threat calls should be taken seriously by the government and had asked the police to taken necessary action.

Following which, Kanjurmarg Police along with cyber police initiated an investigation and arrested the accused on Wednesday. Currently, the accused is being interrogated. Mayur Shinde is in police custody and further investigation is on, police said.

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Sandeep Deshpande and BJP MLA Nitesh Rane have alleged that Mayur Shinde is an associate of Sunil and had hatched the conspiracy so that the security of the Raut brothers is increased.

Earlier, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar got threats on social media. The Facebook message stated that he would face the same fate as that of Narendra Dabholkar, activist who was shot dead in Pune in August 2013. Raut had said that Opposition leaders were being selectively threatened to instill fear in them.