Curfew was imposed in Kankavli, the hometown of former Maharashtra chief minister Narayan Rane, on Friday after Shiv Sena activists attacked police vehicles demanding the arrest of those involved in ransacking Rane's house last year.

Those who had ransacked Rane's house were suspected to be Nationalist Congress Party activists. The NCP, however, had denied the involvement of its cadres.

According to the police, Shiv Sainiks stormed into Kankavali police station and damaged the SP's car, four five-ton vehicles and a mobile van.

The police said the Sena members went on rampage from 1530 hours IST. The situation was brought under control at 1900 hours after the imposition of curfew from 1700 hours, the police said. 

Minister of State for Home (Rural) Kripashankar Singh told rediff.com that trouble erupted when NCP and Shiv Sena activists clashed after Sena activists went on a rampage in protest against the police failure to arrest the culprits who had ransacked Rane's house.

Singh said district Sena chief Sanjay Hadke was injured in the clash.

An officer of the Kankavli police told rediff.com on telephone that a crowd of 500 Shiv Sena activists led by MLAs Shankar Kamble and Shivram Dalvi and Hadke had marched to the town police station to demand the arrest of the culprits as promised by Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde in the assembly seven days ago.

The three leaders asked the crowd to wait outside and went in to speak to the police officers and place their demand before them.

But the officers told the Sena leaders that they could not act because the case had been handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department of the state police. After this the Sena activists went on a rampage. 

Two companies of the Central Reserve Police Force have been deployed in the town, the officer told rediff.com