Mid-Day

The Maharashtra legislature Wednesday suspended five of its members, including one each from the BJP, Shiv Sena and MNS, for assaulting a police officer within the legislature premises.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Harshwardhan Patil announced the suspension of the five legislators from the house till the end of the year.

These five are Independent legislators Kshitij Thakur and Pradeep Jaiswal, Shiv Sena's Rajan Salvi, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena's (MNS) Ram Kadam and Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Jaykumar Rawal.

The five assaulted Assistant Police Inspector (Traffic) Sachin Suryawanshi of Worli police station on the first floor of the legislature building Tuesday. Suryawanshi allegedly stopped the vehicle of Thakur and fined him for overspeeding on the Rajiv Gandhi Bandra-Worli Sea Link Monday.

Bashed up: Traffic API Sachin Suryavanshi was beaten up by MLAs at Vidhan Bhavan. He was admitted to St George Hospital. Pic/Bipin Kokate

While members cutting across party lines demanded that the cop be suspended, some of them rushed to the visitor's gallery of Vidhan Bhavan where he was sitting and thrashed him. The police officer was rushed to St George Hospital for treatment.