Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, local MLA Manish Jaiswal and several district BJP leaders were detained in Hazaribagh district while they were taking out a religious procession on a restricted route on the occasion of Ram Navami on Tuesday. BJP supporters resorted to stone-pelting, and the police used teargas shells to disperse them. No one sustained any major injury, the police said. The incident took place at Mahudi village under Barkagaon police station’s jurisdiction. District officials said adequate forces were deployed subsequently and the situation was peaceful. According to the police, Sinha, Jaiswal and other leaders took out the procession on a route where no procession has been allowed for decades. But the administration had clamped Section 144 and did not allow the leaders to proceed. Sinha sat on dharna with his supporters. “When the leaders were detained, some of their supporters resorted to stone-pelting. The police lobbed eight teargas shells. The situation was immediately brought under control,” Hazaribagh Deputy Commissioner Ravi Shankar Shukla said. When contacted, Jaiswal said: “We wanted this issue to be resolved at the earliest. At some point violence had occurred in the village. But things have changed. That is our only demand, that a religious procession be allowed to pass through. The villagers want the issue to be resolved because every year the police barricade the village.” Asked whether the timing was right for such an attempt, Jaiswal said: “Once Ram Navami is over, the issue dies down. That is why we raised the issue at this point.” He added that permission had been taken from the administration. The district administration said an application was given in this regard. “But the SDO held a hearing and rejected the application,” said Shukla. Officials said Mahudi has been witnessing violence over passage of religious processions through its Muslim settlement since 1942. After 1942, no procession was allowed there.
