The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) Thursday arrested a resident of Bhopal for allegedly making a threatening post on social media directed at a judge linked to the Gyanvapi mosque case. The judge had in 2022 ordered a court-monitored survey of the Gyanvapi mosque complex in Varanasi in response to a suit filed by five women seeking the right to worship at the disputed shrine. The arrested person has been identified as Adnan Khan. The police have seized his mobile phone and sent it for forensic examination. “Adnan was produced before a local court in Lucknow, which sent him to seven days of police custody, concluding on June 20. The remand began this morning,” said Additional District Government Counsel Mithlesh Kumar Singh. He added that the agency had sought police custody of Adnan Khan to question him in detail. The agency claimed to have found videos of speeches in Arabic and English in the gallery of the accused’s mobile phone. The content of the videos was deemed ‘suspicious’. According to Singh, the ATS alleged that messages posted on the Instagram ID which is used by Khan are threatening and hateful towards the judge and others. The agency lodged a case in this connection on June 3 at the ATS police station under IPC Sections 155 (liability of person for whose benefit riot is committed), 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups), 506 (criminal intimidation), and Section 13 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar, who ordered the court-monitored survey while serving as Civil Judge (Senior Division) in Varanasi in 2022, is presently posted in Bareilly as an Additional District Judge. While hearing a petition filed by the five women seeking the right to worship inside the mosque complex on April 8, 2022, Judge Diwakar appointed Ajay Kumar Mishra as advocate commissioner to conduct the videography survey of the Kashi complex. In response to an application filed by the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid committee, which accused Mishra of being ‘biased,’ the court on May 12, 2022, appointed two more advocate commissioners – lawyers Vishal Singh and Ajay Pratap Singh – to assist him. The court later removed Mishra. In June 2022, the Varanasi police conducted an inquiry into a two-page letter purportedly sent to Judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar by the president of the Islamic Aagaz Movement, a Delhi-based outfit, questioning the order. In the letter, outfit president Kashif Ahmed Siddiqui mentioned the judge’s family and referred to the Prime Minister and a former Chief Justice of India in a derogatory manner. Thereafter, the Varanasi police upgraded the judge’s security and wrote to their counterparts in Lucknow to ensure the safety of his family residing there.
