Doing one upmanship over its rival Shiv Sena, which defended the 14 accused in the New Year molestation case, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray on Thursday accompanied them to meet Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil saying they were innocent.

Thackeray took the accused to Patil at his Malabar Hill residence because he believes that all of them were innocent and had therefore surrendered, MNS sources said.

The meeting took place even after the police filed a revision application in the court against the granting of the bail to these accused.

The MNS has been maintaining that the youth who were arrested were all innocent and that no Maharashtrian would behave in such a way.

The 14 persons were arrested recently on charges of molesting two NRI girls in front of a five star hotel on the New Year night in Juhu area of Mumbai. They were produced before a court, which granted them bail.

The matter had come to light when two photographers of a national daily, who happened to be on the spot, managed to click the photos of the girls being groped and molested.