Mumbai: The Powai hostage-crisis-and-encounter has snowballed into a full-scale political issue in Maharashtra with the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi accusing the BJP-led Maha Yuti dispensation of harassing contractors and delaying their payments even as the entire episode is set to land in the Bombay High Court. A Mumbai-based lawyer and activist Nitin Satpute is set to move the Bombay High Court with a writ petition seeking a probe into the death of the 50-year-old man.

The suspect, Rohit Arya, was agitated, as the government was not sanctioning funds — around Rs two crore — for his project even as questions arose as to why then state School Education Minister Deepak Kesarkar, who is from the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, made payments to him from his personal account.

In October 2022, K

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