NASHIK, Apr 24 (IANS) : Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said it was wrong on the government's part to label JNU students' union leader Kanhaiya Kumar as "anti-national".

"Who gave birth to Kanhaiya Kumar in the first place? The government should think over this. He has been wrongly labelled anti-national," Thackeray said at a meeting of party office-bearers in Nashik.

If youth are branded "anti-national" in this manner, they will not be able to work freely for the country and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will forfeit the their support, he warned.

"Youth are in huge numbers in our country and therefore Centre must take care," the Shiv Sena chief said.

Thackeray's comments came hours after Kanhaiya Kumar alleged that a co-passenger tried to strangle him on a Jet Airways Mumbai-Pune flight in the morning.

Both Kanhaiya and the passenger - identified as Manas DJ of Kolkata - were off-loaded by Jet Airways.

Joint Police Commissioner Deven Bharati said the incident was actually a scuffle in which around eight people were involved and that Kanhaiya Kumar's claims were exaggerated.

"When Kumar was asked to lodge a complaint, he declined and what his friend said about the incident in his complaint was found to be false," Bharati said.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra's minister of state for home Ram Shinde asserted that there was no attack on Kanhaiya Kumar.

"The police report says that fighting between two passengers led to scuffle. Kanhaiya's allegations (are) baseless," Shinde said.
In view of the development, Pune Police have further tightened security for Kanhaiya Kumar.