'If being in Qasab's jail is special treatment, I got it'

Released on bail from Arthur Road prison, MLA Ram Kadam jeers at being quizzed about receiving special treatment; insists he never beat up any policeman

“Ask any common man how he’s treated when he goes to a police station and that would answer all your questions to me.”

Ram Kadam outside Arthur Road jail. Pic/Abhinav Kocharekar

This is what MNS MLA Ram Kadam said, after he came out of Arthur Road jail on bail and was asked if he was given exceptional treatment in the prison. Kadam, one of the MLAs accused of beating a traffic police officer in Vidhan Bhavan last Tuesday, claims he never thrashed anyone.

“I never beat up anyone. I had gone to talk to him and asked him why he was so rude and haughty. I wondered aloud that if he was so arrogant to an MLA, how he dealt with the common man. I have come to know that this particular police officer is very conceited. He doesn’t even listen to his seniors, so one can judge what kind of a person he is,” said Kadam.

Asked whether he was given any special treatment by the police in jail he jeered at the question, saying, “If you stay where Ajmal Qasab and Abu Jundal have stayed, and they consider it special treatment, then I guess I did receive special treatment,” he said.

Kadam claimed he was being dragged into the controversy unnecessarily because of his background. The MLA had made news earlier for slapping Samajwadi Party’s Abu Azmi, when he went on to take oath to office in the Maharashtra assembly in Hindi.

There have been allegations that the MNS didn’t support him during the upheaval after last week’s incident when a traffic cop was beaten by some MLAs in Vidhan Bhavan. Kadam had been named in the FIR at Marine Drive police station by the cop. But when quizzed about it, he refuted the claims. “All my party MLAs including Bala Nandgaonkar, Nitin Sardesai and others were present.

My party chief (Raj Thackeray) has said that anyone who beats policemen shouldn’t be spared, but then that’s not against me because he also said that I could not have done anything like that. I am telling you I didn’t beat anyone,” said Kadam. Kadam insisted that he was innocent in the matter and to get answers for the questions being posed to him, anyone in Maharashtra should visit the police station and tell him how the police treated them.u00a0

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