India, April 28 -- Maharashtra fisheries minister and BJP leader Nitesh Rane has been convicted and sentenced to a month's imprisonment by a Sindhudurg district court in connection with a 2019 incident, where Rane and his supporters humiliated a government official by pouring mud on him and forcing him to walk through slush in public.

Rane, then an opposition Congress MLA, has been convicted under Section 504 (intentional insult to provoke a breach of peace). The court has, however, suspended the sentence, giving Rane an opportunity to appeal.

Even as it recorded that the BJP leader had compelled the engineer to walk through muddy water in public view, the judgement, delivered by Additional Sessions Judge V S Deshmukh at Oros, convicted...