Five Bajrang Dal members arrested on October 4 for allegedly assaulting Muslim men at a garba venue in Ahmedabad on September 27, were released on bail a day later. On September 27, one Salman Sheikh, suffered injuries to his head, with videos showing him bleeding and being dragged by his neck on the road by a man, after he, along with others, purportedly tried to enter a garba venue at Rajpath Rangoli Road at RK Party Plot. The five arrested, who are members of Bajrang Dal, as confirmed by Sarkhej police station inspector VJ Chavda, are aged between 25 and 28 years and are residents of Ghatlodia and Memnagar in Ahmedabad. While the FIR was filed against “unidentified persons”, the five arrested were Hiren Rabari, Nilesh Prajapati, Jitendra Koli, Sahil Dudhkiya and Tarun Mistry. Chavda said that the five were produced before court the next day - October 5 - and were released on bail since the offences are bailable. An FIR was lodged upon the police’s complaint on September 29 after videos of the incident went viral. The FIR was lodged under IPC sections 143 (unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 294 (b) (utters obscene words), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion). During Navratri, Vinod Bansal, the national spokesperson, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) had announced that Bajrang Dal has decided to post its “volunteers” outside many garba venues in Gujarat and conduct surprise checks at such venues so as to "guard" such events from the 'non-believers', and prevent them from spreading "love jihad". "The non-believers (vidharmis) have no reason to attend such events. Garba is not only a cultural event, but also religious. If a non-believer attends it, it makes it clear about their intentions as to why they want to attend the event," Bansal had said.
