MNS attacks snack vendors after one caught peeing in vessel

Over 300 stalls selling Mumbaikar's favourite snacks were attacked, vandalised and destroyed by MNS activists, protesting against one pani-puriwalla who was caught on camera urinating in a vessel used to serve his customers.

'This is not only shocking but spoils the name of all the people selling these snacks all over Mumbai. But a lesson must be taught to warn the others,' MNS vice president V. Saraswat told IANS.

He said that the issue of how vendors selling pani-puri and bhel-puri are allowed to operate must be taken up. 'Over 95 percent are operating illegally after bribing the police and civic officials,' Saraswat said.

Since early Thursday afternoon, scores of MNS activists swooped on the stalls selling these snacks and broke them up.

The attack followed a Mumbai tabloid exposing a Thane city pani-puriwalla who was seen urinating in a container which was also used to serve the hungry customers.

The vendor, Rajdev Lakhan Chauhan (59), ran a stall at Bhaskar Colony in Navpada, was caught on lens by a 19-year old college student, Ankita Rane, last Tuesday.