The Uttar Pradesh police registered a First Information Report (FIR) on Monday in connection with the burning of photocopies of some pages of the Ramcharitmanas by office bearers of an organisation, The All India OBC Mahasabha and Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya in Lucknow.
The case was registered on the basis of the complaint of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Satnam Singh against Mahendra Pratap Yadav, Devendra Yadav, Yashpal Singh Lodhi, S.S. Yadav, Sujit, Naresh Singh, Salim and Santosh Verma, Mr. Maurya and other persons under Sections 142 (Unlawful assembly), 152 A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth and residence), 295 (Intent to insult the religion of any class), 298 (Uttering words, etc.,with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
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The All India OBC Mahasabha organised a symbolic protest on Sunday in Vrindavan Yojna locality in Lucknow in support of the statement made by Mr. Maurya on the Ramcharitmanas.
An office bearer of the organisation, Devendra Pratap Yadav said, “We support the demands of Mr. Maurya and in place of removing objectionable words from the text, cases are lodged against the leader.”
The office bearer added that in a symbolic move the members of the organisation are burning pages containing those alleged texts.
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Mr. Maurya earlier said on the Ramcharitmanas, “This is not true that crores of people read it. It was written by Tulsidas for own happiness. But why abuses in the name of religion? Abuses to Backwards, Dalits and tribals. I respect all religions. But if in the name of religion, a community or caste is humiliated then it is objectionable,”.
The statement led to massive uproar in Uttar Pradesh.
