The Uttar Pradesh police, who came here on Saturday to arrest a Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Bijnor, Bhartendu Singh, were sent back in the absence of a warrant.
Mr. Singh is one of the four BJP MLAs against whom a First Information Report was filed for delivering inflammatory speeches at the Bahu-beti samman va and Hindu bachao mahapanchayat on September 7, the others being Hukum Singh, Suresh Rana, and Sangeet Som. Their speeches allegedly fuelled the Muzaffarnagar riots.
But the U.P. police team was stopped by BJP supporters here including local MLAs Harbans Kapoor and Ganesh Joshi. Mr. Kapoor said, “Mr. Bhartendu Singh had come to Dehradun to visit his mother. The U.P. police came here to arrest him on the basis of an FIR. But there was no arrest warrant.”
Senior Superintendent of Police Kewal Khurana said, “We stopped the U.P. police from arresting Mr. Singh, as they did not have a non-bailable warrant.”
