"No regret and ready to face punishment": Geeta Jain on slapping engineer over house demolition

A video showing a woman legislator from Thane district of Maharashtra slapping a junior civic engineer in public view has gone viral on social media. The video clip shows Mira Bhayandar MLA Geeta Jain abusing two engineers of the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) over razing a house which resulted in its occupants, including children, being forced to stay on the road ahead of monsoon.

MLA said she didn’t regret her action and is ready to face punishment. I lost control when I saw the civic official laughing when the homeowners were sharing their plight. When women who saw their home being demolished were crying, the concerned civic official was laughing at them. My action was a natural reaction to him, Jain told Marathi news channel ABP Majha over the phone.

Jain admitted that her act was against the law. Speaking about the incident, Jain said only a portion of the house razed by junior civic engineers was illegal and its occupants had promised to remove the illegal part. The illegal construction was proving to be a hurdle for a builder and not to any government amenity or road. Still, these civic officials went there and instead of demolishing the illegal portion, they razed the entire house,” she claimed.

I had told the officials about this GR and asked them not to proceed 15 days back. The order comes into effect on June 1 every year. Still, they went ahead and damaged the house a few days back, she claimed. I will raise this issue in the Assembly. Let him (the engineer who was slapped) file a case against me. I am ready to face it. How can one tolerate civic officials pulling down structures built on private land? the legislator asked.