The Legislative Council heard on Wednesday, that 62 cases had been filed in Mumbai till February against people for manhandling or assaulting policemen on duty. This is the highest for a city in Maharashtra. What is more alarming is that out of these, charge sheets in only seven cases have been filed. The larger picture shows that the state registered 179 such cases, of which only 19 have reached the charge sheet stage.

One learnt this through a written reply given in the Upper House by CM Devendra Fadnavis to a question by Vikram Kale of the NCP. Reports state that besides Mumbai, most such cases were reported from Thane (17), Aurangabad (13) and Pune (12) districts. While no charge sheets were registered in Thane and Pune, only two cases reached the court in Aurangabad. This paints a very poor picture of Mumbai. While the media is rife with reports about police high handedness, we hear very little when the police are targeted.