Sarpanch, 20 others booked for storming collectorate over BLO duty for ZP teachers

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: A village sarpanch and about 20 others have been booked for allegedly storming the district collector’s office, threatening a tehsildar and disrupting govt work while protesting the appointment of teachers from a zilla parishad school as booth-level officers for the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.

In a separate case, a private school teacher was booked for allegedly refusing to perform SIR-related booth-level officer duties despite repeated notices.The City Chowk police registered an FIR against Mangesh Sabale, the sarpanch of Gevrai Payga village in Phulambri tehsil, and 20 unidentified people based on a complaint filed by deputy tehsildar Sanjeev Rajur. Sabale was detained by the police.According to the FIR, the group gathered at the district collectorate around 11.30am on Wednesday without permission to oppose the deployment of teachers from the village ZP school for the ongoing SIR.The complainant alleged that the protesters raised slogans, abused the district collector and Phulambri tehsildar, threatened to assault the tehsildar and disrupted official work.The FIR further stated that despite being asked to report to the police station, the protesters remained seated at the collectorate entrance, obstructing public movement. They allegedly threatened to pour petrol on themselves and commit self-immolation if detained.

Based on Rajur’s complaint, the police registered a case under sections 132, 296, 126, 189 and 351(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and section 135 of the Maharashtra Police Act.In another case linked to the SIR exercise, the Cantonment police booked a private school teacher from the Mukundwadi area for allegedly disobeying election-related orders. A block development officer from Phulambri panchayat samiti alleged that the teacher neither responded to repeated calls from his supervisor nor accepted the appointment order when officials visited his school.The police registered a case under section 223 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and section 32 of the Representation of the People Act for allegedly failing to comply with lawful directions issued for election work.