Protests, stone pelting in Dasna over Yati Narsighanand remarks; 6 arrested

“We arrested six men on Sunday. Several police teams have been constituted to arrest the rest of those accused in this case,” said Lipi Nagaich, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Wave City, Ghaziabad.

An FIR against the crowd was registered by a Ghaziabad Police sub-inspector under sections 298 (injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult religion of any class); 353 (statements conducing to public mischief); 191(2) (rioting); 193(3)(liability of owner of land on which an unlawful assembly or riot takes place); 132 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty); 121(1) (voluntarily causing hurt or grievous hurt to deter public servant from his duty); and 221 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

“The six accused have been identified as Sameer Mohammad, Sajid, Aamir, Shoaib, Farman and Shahzad Syed. They are residents of Ghaziabad,” said an officer part of the Wave City Police team that made the arrests.

“They are in police custody and we are taking necessary legal action,” said the Ghaziabad Police.

Police said during questioning, the six arrested men claimed objectionable comments were made by people of the other community which had hurt their religious sentiments.

“We got angry and gathered together and started shouting slogans,” the accused claimed, said police.

Two teams were formed at the police station level to arrest the accused. “They were nabbed based on manual inputs and CCTV footage by the Wave City police station team,” said an officer.

On Thursday, Ghaziabad Police booked Yati for the alleged hate speech.

Police had said the FIR against him was registered under Section 302 (hurting someone’s religious feelings) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita based on a complaint by sub-inspector Trivendra Singh.

On Saturday, Yati was learnt to have been detained by the Uttar Pradesh Police.

While there was no official statement, a police officer had confirmed this to The Indian Express. According to a PTI report, his aides, too, said he had been detained in Ghaziabad.