A businessman knocked the doors of Telangana High Court seeking a direction to police department not to permit the proposed demonstration to be held by United Muslim Action Committee (UMAC) and the Majlis-e-Ithehadul Muslimeen (MIM) party on January 25 midnight at Charminar in Old City.
The petitioner said the police should also be instructed to ensure that the UMAC and the MIM stopped the campaign for the meeting as no permission was granted to them yet. The petitioner T. Uma Mahendra of Petlaburj apprehended that the demonstration protesting Centre’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) might trigger trouble in the communally sensitive Old City.
The petitioner contended that some legislators of MIM had a history of making provocative speeches and were facing cases in this regard. If permission was granted to the demonstration, the possibility of recurrence of such speeches could not be ruled out, the petitioner stated. Violence erupted in some parts of the country while staging demonstrations and rallies against CAA and NRC, the petitioner maintained.
The procession and demonstration was at midnight and being organised at a point which had in the past witnessed communal violence, the businessman said in the petition. Since the event was being planned the night before Republic Day, adequate police force would not be available for security arrangements, the petitioner said.
The UMAC and the MIM had taken out a rally culminating in a meeting at Shastripuram on the same issue on this January 10. The organisers announced at that meeting that they would hold a protest rally and demonstration on the midnight of January 25 though by then the police had not granted permission to them for the event, the petitioner said.
While the organisers continued to make statements about the meeting calling people to attend it despite not securing permission, the police had not made any efforts to stop them from doing so, the petitioner charged. The petition is likely to come up for hearing in a day or two.
