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The Hindu newspaper’s Uttar Pradesh correspondent, Omar Rashid, was allegedly detained by the Lucknow police for around two hours on Friday. He alleged that “communal slurs” were used against him.
When contacted by The Indian Express, Additional SP (East) Suresh Chandra Rawat claimed that he “does not know about the detention”. Despite repeated attempts to contact them, senior officers were unavailable for comment.
Rashid said, “I was waiting in Hazratganj… when some people in civilian clothes barged into the dhaba… They then pushed me and my activist friend into a vehicle… They then took to us to Hazratganj police station where I was searched and the policemen there made communal remarks about me and my Kashmiri identity.”
Rashid alleged that the police claimed that he and Verma were involved in the violence and arson that happened in Lucknow on Thursday.
When contacted by The Indian Express, the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s media adviser Mrityunjay Kumar said “I spoke to him (Rashid) and he did not say anything about communal slurs… It (the claim) is wrong. I spoke to editors at The Hindu. It happened due to a misunderstanding in the kind of atmosphere there is at the moment…”
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