Mistaken as forest guard, police constable attacked

Four persons were arrested for allegedly attacking a police constable here, who was mistook as a forest guard by the miscreants, police said today.
Constable Naresh C Ghatal (28), attached to Thane district rural police headquarters, was waylaid by a gang of six persons, two of them are at large, on Dahagaon- Pivili road last evening while he was returning home in Shahpur, assistant police inspector Sahapur police station Sachin Saste, told PTI.
According to the complaint registered by the victim, attackers hit Ghatal with an iron rod, mistaking him as a forest guard and also beat him, and later tried to push him from a bridge, Saste said, adding, it was only after the passers-by intervened and rescued him.

Four persons have been arrested since last night, and have been identified as Sachin Behere, Swapnil Kante, Arun Bhangar and Shailendra Singh, while manhunt for the two others is on, he said.
A case have been booked against them under IPC sections 307 (attempt to murder), 363 (kidnapping), 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means), 143 (punishment- whoever is a member of an unlawful assembly) and other relevant IPC sections.
Earlier, fortnight back a 50-year-old forest beat guard B N Jadhav, who was on duty was allegedly killed, while he was preventing an encroachment on the forest land in Mumbra Devi Hills of Rabale area in Navi Mumbai.

Meanwhile, senior BJP leader in the state Om Prakash Sharma today sent a memorandum to the office of Union Minister for Environment, Forests Prakash Javdekar, urging him to stop the permissions being issued for cutting trees in the private forest land.