MUMBAI, Feb 4: Amitabh Bachchan’s home here was under guard on Monday after a key right-wing politician criticised him at an anti-migrant rally for funding a college in another state, sparking violence in India’s financial capital, police said.

Raj Thackeray, leader of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena or Maharashtra Reconstruction Party, told supporters at a rally on Friday that actor Amitabh Bachchan, 65, should have built the women’s college in Mumbai, the city where he lives and works, rather than in his home state of Uttar Pradesh.

Thackeray also called for action to prevent Indians from other states from taking jobs in Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, blaming the migrants for increasing unemployment in the state.

Thackeray’s comments spark-ed clashes in the streets of Mumbai late on Sunday between supporters of his party and the Socialist Party, which Bachchan’s wife Jaya represents in India’s parliament.

Four people were injured in the violence and police arrested 25 more, police commissioner K.L. Prasad said.

Security has been tightened around Bachchan’s house following reports that vandals threw glass bottles at it during the clashes, Prasad said, adding that the actor and his family were not home at the time.

“The situation is under control. We have taken precautions such as increasing security,” he said.

Police were investigating who was behind the attack on Amitabh’s house, he said.

Thackeray told reporters in the western city of Pune that he knew nothing about the vandalism at the actor’s house.

Amitabh was not immediately available for comment.

Some 37 per cent of the population of Mumbai, a bustling city of more than 18 million people, are migrants from across the country, according to the government. The various groups mostly coexist peacefully in Mumbai, despite differences in language and culture.However, some complain that the migrants usurp their job opportunities.

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, a splinter group of the powerful Hindu nationalist party Shiv Sena, last year attacked malls and shops claiming they employed migrants from northern India instead of local people.—AP