At least nine people -- including three policemen -- were injured when police tried to stop around 800 Shiv Sainiks from damaging railway property in central Mumbai on Tuesday.
The sainiks, led by the leader of the Sena-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Sena, Praveen Darekar, entered the Railway Recruitment Board office and demanded that more locals [Marathis] be selected for railway jobs.
Central Railway is holding exams for the post of 'gangmen', a group D post, on November 23. There are around 2,200 vacancies.
The sainiks damaged RRB Chairman Anil Mittal's cabin and caused extensive damage; bank cheques, drafts and application forms were lying all over the office.
Police immediately reached the spot and tried to save the documents.
Mittal told rediff.com: "At least eighty people entered my cabin and told me to cancel the exams. I told them it was not possible. They got violent and started attacking me and breaking office furniture."
"This is an all-India level examination, so it will be held on schedule and candidates will selected on the basis of merit."
Sena Member of Parliament Mohan Rawle, who arrived at the scene later, said, "The Shiv Sainiks only requested that the exams should be cancelled, but the concerned railway officers did not listen to them. Our demand was that Marathi people should given priority during selection."
Rawle said that in other state priority was given to locals. He said he would raise the issue with Railway Minister Nitish Kumar.
Those who were injured were identified as Pravin Darer, Suryakant Pawar, Satish Pawar, Suresh Amre, Ajit Adsare, Abhinay Mule (all sainiks), Shri Ram Yadav, Devendra Pathak and Brijesh Roy (policemen).
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