Police have lodged an FIR at Biharsharief in Nalanda district of Bihar against two Bajrang Dal members and five others for unfurling saffron flags at some vegetable, fruit and ration shops belonged to Hindus. They also allegedly urged Hindus to purchase such stuffs either from the shops where saffron flags are unfurled or owned by the Hindus.
Biharsharief Block Development Officer (BDO) Rajiv Ranjan has lodged the FIR (No 147 / 2020) on April 20 at the Laheri police station against two local Bajrang Dal members, Kundan Kumar and Dheeraj Kumar, along with five unidentified others.
In the FIR, Mr. Ranjan said that on April 18, on information he visited Bharvpar Chowk “where I saw that saffron flags are being unfurled at the shops owned by Hindus by the local Bajrang Dal members Kundan Kumar, Dheeraj Kumar and five other unidentified people and Hindus are also being urged to purchase the stuffs only from those shops which has saffron flags or owned by Hindus.”
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“There is a strong possibility that communal harmony may be disturbed or communal tension may be created with their act… after investigation it was also found that on a social site at Twitter handle @ Rahul Prince 1432 such things have been mentioned and pictures of saffron flags being unfurled at shops have been released by these members of Nalanda Bajrang Dal,” the official’s FIR said.
Tablighi meet
Nalanda is Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s home district. From Nalanda several COVID-19 positive cases have been detected in Bihar and it was said a Tablighi Jamaat meeting was also held there on March 14-15 on a mosque campus at Biharsharief, the district headquarters.
In a letter to the Bihar Disaster Management Department on April 12, the Nalanda district magistrate had said that the meeting had around 640 participants and most of them were from Bihar while some are from the neighbouring Jharkhand. Biharsharief has a sizeable number of Muslim population.
An FIR was lodged under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 147 (rioting), 149 unlawful assembly), 188 (disobedience), 153A (promoting enmity between religions), 295A (malicious act to outrage religious feelings), and Section 66 of the IT Act. Police official Ranjit Rai will investigate, said the FIR copy. To a question, Laheri police station inspector Birendra Rai said “none has been arrested yet in the case.”
