The Uttarakhand Police on Saturday added the names of two more persons in the FIR pertaining to the religious conclave in Haridwar organised between December 17-19, where calls were made for genocide and violence against Muslims.
One of the organisers of the event — Yati Narsinghanand — who faces criminal cases in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi as well, was named in the FIR on Saturday.
The police also added Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code to the existing first information report (FIR) . The Section prescribes a maximum of three years imprisonment for “deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs”.
At the religious gathering, Mr. Narsinghanand had called on Hindu youth to become “Prabhakaran” and “Bhindranwale” and provoked Hindus to pick up arms against the Muslims, promising to give them ₹1 crore for it.
Another speaker at the event — Sagar Sindhu Maharaj, whose name was added — had asked Hindus to have more children and spare Muslims only if they converted to Hinduism.
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None of the five accused named so far in the case have been arrested yet.
Ashok Kumar, Uttarakhand Director General of Police, said two more names had been added after the viral video clips of the event were examined, and upon further investigation, Section 295A of the IPC had also been added to the FIR.
The Haridwar police had on December 23 registered a case under Section 153A of the IPC (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), entailing a maximum punishment of five years, after the video clips went viral.
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The initial FIR had only named Wasim Rizvi alias Jitendra Narayan Tyagi as an accused. Mr. Rizvi, a former chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Shia Waqf Board, had recently converted to Hinduism .
On December 26, the police added the names of Annapurna Maa alias Pooja Shakun Pandey, “ mahamandleshwar ” of the Niranjini Akhada and general secretary of Hindu Mahasabha, and Dharamdas Maharaj, a resident of Bihar, to the FIR.
