Ghaziabad/Aligarh/Saharanpur/Meerut: Protests were held on Monday in several parts of Uttar Pradesh, including the Aligarh Muslim University, demanding arrest and strict punishment for controversial priest Yati Narshinganand over his remarks against Prophet Muhammad.
Also, Uttar Pradesh police arrested 13 people in Saharanpur for stone pelting at the Sheikhpura Qadeem police post during a protest on Sunday, and another four for violence on Friday outside the Dasna Devi temple in Ghaziabad which is headed by Narsinghanand.
In Moradabad, Lok Sabha MP Ruchi Veera reached the collectorate on Monday with her supporters and handed over a memorandum addressed to the President in which she demanded strict action against Narsinghanand, city magistrate Kinshuk Srivastava said.
“Why Yogi Adityanath’s bulldozer justice was not implemented under the zero-tolerance policy against the Mahant who made the hateful statement,” the Samajwadi Party MP said.
Describing the incidents of stone pelting at different places over the priest’s statement as unfortunate, she appealed to the people not to take the law into their hands and said that everyone should exercise restraint.
“Because India is a country of ‘Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb’, we have to live in brotherhood,” she said.
In Bahraich, a delegation of Jamiat Ulema led by its district unit president Quari Juber submitted a memorandum to District Magistrate Monica Rani, demanding that stringent provisions of the law should be invoked against Narsinghanand.
The memorandum stated that Section 302 (uttering words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings of any person) of the BNS under which the police have registered the case is generally used for minor hate speech, under which the maximum punishment is one year, Juber told reporters.
He demanded stringent punishment for Narsinghanand.
“Narsinghanand has hatched a despicable conspiracy to defame Islam, which has caused deep resentment in the Muslim community…. Peace, love, and brotherhood cannot be established in the country as long as such people are there,” he said.
Hundreds of students of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) took out a protest march on the campus against Narshinganand’s remarks amid heavy deployment of police and PAC personnel.
The protestors marched from Duckpoint crossing inside the campus and up to Bab-e-Sir Syed Gate and handed over a memorandum to district officials addressed to the President.
The memorandum alleged that Narshinganand had “repeatedly stoked communal passions in the country by his hate speeches, but the law enforcement services have failed to take exemplary action against him” which has “emboldened him to continue his diatribe against Muslims”.
It demanded his immediate arrest under stringent provisions so that the “peace of the land is not destroyed”.
The memorandum stated that AMU students were “committed to secular values as enshrined in the Constitution of India” and would continue to work for peace and prosperity of the land.
AMU Spokesman Omar Peerzada told PTI that the protest was “completely peaceful”.
The students in a separate memorandum addressed to the Chief Justice of India have urged him to take cognisance of this incident.
The protesters also filed a complaint at the Civil Lines police station.
Similar protests were held in a number of places in the old city and a complaint was also lodged at Kotwali police station.
Circle officer-1 Abhay Kumar Pandey told PTI that all such complaints are being redirected to Ghaziabad through a Zero FIR, as the incident took place there.
Members of the Muslim community under the banner of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind also held a sit-in protest in Modinagar in Ghaziabad to press for strict action against the priest and handed over a memorandum, ACP Modinagar Gyan Prakash Rai said.
Multiple FIRs have already been registered against Yati Narsinghanand. His aides have claimed that Narsinghanand has been kept in illegal detention, but the police have denied it.
Meanwhile, Ghaziabad Police said that they have taken four more people into custody in connection with the violence on Friday night outside the Dasna Devi temple, headed by Narsinghanand.
“Mehboob, Jishan, Mazid and Shoeb have been arrested. They confessed that they had pelted stones,” ACP Lipi Nagaich told PTI.
Six people were earlier arrested for the incident.
In Saharanpur, a case had been registered against 20 named and other unidentified individuals under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for stone pelting at Sheikhpura Qadeem post during a protest on Sunday.
“Of these 20 named individuals, 13 accused persons were arrested on Sunday. Police teams have been constituted, and efforts are on to nab other accused,” Superintendent of Police (city) of Saharanpur Abhimanyu Manglik on Monday told PTI.
District Magistrate of Saharanpur Manish Bansal, who visited the village along with SSP Rohit Sajwan on Monday, said, “The situation in the village is absolutely normal and peaceful. We held a meeting with people of that village, who were present in large numbers, and all of them expressed regret that an incident of this type had taken place in the village.”
“The villagers have assured that they will extend help in getting the rest of the accused persons arrested. The situation in the village is normal, and it never had a history of violence,” he told PTI.
Protests also erupted in the Mundali area of Meerut with demonstrators, including children, brandishing sticks and raising slogans.
Police intervened to disperse the crowd after reports of unrest. A video of the incident has gone viral.
An FIR has been filed against 30 named and around 100-150 unidentified persons, with some protesters taken into custody.
Superintendent of Police (Rural) Rakesh Kumar Mishra told PTI that video evidence is being used to identify those involved.
On the other side, Hindu organisations held a march in support of Narsinghanand and condemned the “misrepresentation of Narsinghanand’s comments”, demanding action against the protesters.
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