MNS' free for all

Maharashtra's chronically short-staffed police force has been put on alert not because of a terror attack advisory but the protest by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and other political parties against road tolls. After MNS chief Raj Thackeray's diktat, several toll booths were vandalised even as other parties and citizens' organisations blockaded roads and damaged booths. Ironically, however, MNS activists in particular were allowed to pass through booths that were being supervised by the police without paying toll. State Home Minister R R Patil admitted that the police force was in a bind between doing its duty and facing an agitation sponsored by all political parties without losing their jobs - which is as good a comment on the lack of independence of the state's so-called custodians of law and order as any.