State Home Minister and member of the NCP, Anil Deshmukh, hit out at the Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray over the use of his discretionary powers as CM to overrule his objections.
The Muslim radicals had attacked the professor as a punishment for the alleged reference to Prophet Mohammed in a question paper that he prepared for an internal exam in 2010.
The two accused, who hailed from Thalassery, were handing out pro-Maoist pamphlets and shouting pro-Maoist slogans when they were arrested from the Pantheerankavu market.