Maha govt to pay Rs 10 L compensation to lynching victim's

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government told the Bombay High Court Thursday that it would pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the father of a 24-year-old man who was lynched by a mob in Pune in 2014. Sadiq Sheikh had approached the high court seeking Rs 10 lakh -- Rs 5 lakh each from the Union government and the state -- under a scheme which offers compensation to victims of communal violence.

His son Mohsin, who was working with an IT firm in Pune, was beaten to death by a mob on June 2, 2014. There was communal tension in Pune's Hadapsar area after morphed photos of late Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj were circulated on social media.

Mohsin and his friend were stopped by the mob when they were returning home. While his friend escaped, Mohsin was lynched. Additional government pleader Manish Pabale Thursday told a division bench of Chief Justice N H Patil and Justice M S Karnik that the compensation amount would be paid to Sheikh in a week.

The court then posted the petition for further hearing after two weeks and asked the government to file an affidavit stating if the amount has been paid. Police had arrested several members of right-wing group Hindu Rashtra Sena for the alleged murder. The charge sheet had named 23 members of the group, including its head Dhananjay Desai. The trial in the case is still on. While some of the accused were released on bail, Desai is still lodged at the Yerwada prison in Pune.