Maharashtra Minister Vinod Tawde allegedly orders arrest of student recording video of a question-answer session, faces ire

MUMBAI: Maharashtra Education Minister Vinod Tawde allegedly ordered the arrest of an undergraduate student in the Amravati district for recording a conversation between the minister and a student.

The student, Yuvraj Dabad, has alleged that after Tawde's orders, the local police detained him for a couple of hours and even seized his smartphone for some time. "As Tawde ordered the police to arrest me, I was taken out of the college premises and detained for some time. My handset was returned after a couple of hours," Dabad said.

The alleged incident took place when Tawde inaugurated an elocution competition at a college in Amravati on Saturday. When the minister was leaving after his speech, some students of a journalism course reached out to him near his vehicle and asked him questions about a free-education policy.

When Tawde saw Yuvraj video-recording the interaction, he allegedly asked "him to stop the recording and later asked the police to arrest him.

While recalling the interaction, Prashant Rathod, a student at the college, said: "I was told by Education Minister Vinod Tawde to start working somewhere if I could not afford the educational expenses. My question to him was whether the state could have a free-education policy."

Dabad also added that the Yuvraj declined the minister's order to stop the recording because "he (Tawde) was not answering our queries". "We were simply asking questions to him and seeking his views," Prashant said.

Hitting out at Tawde, Yuva Sena President Aaditya Thackeray said that the minister only wants youngsters to man their electoral booths, not answer questions about education and jobs. "Every student must read this. - The education minister of Maharashtra directs cops to arrest student. Why? Because he was shooting an interaction! No tough questions please! They want Youth only to man their electoral booths, not answer questions about education & jobs," he tweeted.