Trainee IAS officer's mother detained in Maha's Raigad

Pune (Maharashtra), July 18 (IANS) The Pune Rural Police on Thursday detained Manorama Dilip Khedkar, the mother of the controversial IAS-Probationary Officer Puja M.D. Khedkar, from Mahad town in Maharashtra's Raigad, officials said.

Manorama was ‘missing’ for nearly a week after a video went viral on social media showing her threatening some farmers in Mulshi with a pistol allegedly to grab their land.

As per preliminary information, Manorama was holed up in a small hotel near Mahad town in Raigad district from where a Pune Rural Police team picked her up.

A former Sarpanch (village headwoman) of Bhalgaon, she is being taken to Paud where the complaint by a farmer, Pandharinath Pasalkar, was registered last Friday.

Amid a massive public furore, the Paud Police took cognizance of the incident of brandishing her weapon before farmers and filed Pasalkar’s complaint against Manorama and others, but she had gone incommunicado for days.

Subsequently, the Pune Commissioner of Police also slapped her with a notice seeking to cancel her firearms licence.

Two days ago, (July 16), following directives from the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) Mussoorie, the Maharashtra government relieved Puja Khedkar of her duties as IAS-PO and she is expected to return to her alma mater by July 23, for ‘further necessary action’.