CM faces protests, yet again

A day after protestors hurled stones at helicopter carrying Chief Minister Ashok Chavan near Pune, group of protestors, this time comprising Congress workers, including three corporators, raised slogans as Chavan attended a function at the Mumbai airport on Friday morning.

A day after protestors hurled stones at helicopter carrying Chief Minister Ashok Chavan near Pune, group of protestors, this time comprising Congress workers, including three corporators, raised slogans as Chavan attended a function at the Mumbai airport on Friday morning.

Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patelu00a0at a function at the airport. Pic/Vishal Kelkar

The CM, along with Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, laid the foundation stone for Mumbai airport's new integrated terminal building at Sahar amid the sloganeering. Police detained 10 protestors.

Sahar police senior inspector Dilip Patil said that though the exact reasons for the protests were still unclear, 10 protestors, including three Congress corporators were arrested and charged with rioting. The corporators are Jagdeesh Kutty, Kamlesh Rai and Nitin Salagre.

Sources said that while some of the protestors wearing black bands raised slogans demanding the inclusion of Marathas in the Other Backward Class (OBC) list, others were upset over the non-inclusion of Mumbai Congress chief Kripashankar Singh's name in the list dignitaries invited for the function.

The integrated terminal, catering to both domestic and international passengers will come up in place of the international terminal 2A, which was demolished recently. The entire project is scheduled to be completed by 2013.

"The first phase of construction on the demolished land will be over by 2010. Operations from terminals 2B and 2C will then be moved to the new building so that they can be taken up for demolition and reconstruction," an MIAL spokesperson said. The integrated terminal will be X-shaped and will be a 4 million-sq-ft building.