Registering their support for the 42-year-old Pancharam Rithadia's fight for justice, thousands of residents of Thakkar Bappa Colony in Chembur boycotted the Assembly elections on Monday. Eight days after refusing to claim Rithadia's body from the morgue at Sion Hospital, the family is set to conduct the final rites on his body today. The refusal was a mark of protest against the delay by the police in finding his 17-year-old daughter Aarti who went missing seven months ago.

Rajendra Rithadia, a relative of the family, said, "We don't see the point of voting since no one is helping us secure justice for my uncle and cousin." Aarti went missing seven months ago went missing from there and the Nehru Nagar police had registered a case of kidnapping the same day. Her frustrated father committed suicide on October 13.