Team Clarion
NEW DELHI – Members of Hindutva outfit Kali Sena were booked for evicting and assaulting the vendors and shopkeepers of the Muslim community and urging the locals to evict the Muslim tenants from their houses in Uttarakhand’s Dehradun.
The FIR named Bhupesh Joshi and his associates Vaibhav Panwar, Ajay Captain, Acharya Vipul Bangwal and Rajendra Singh Negi, a retired Army man, and others as accused.
According to reports, the incident took place on 4 January in Nathuwala locality of the city when some people held a protest against the sexual abuse of the minor.
“During this gathering, they incited people, giving a communal angle to (the case) and delivering provocative speeches, urging locals to assault and evict tenants from other communities living or running businesses in the area,” the FIR was quoted by Indian Express as saying. “They then marched from Nathuwawala to Donali while vandalising signboards and banners of shops owned by individuals from other communities.”
The FIR was filed on the complaint of sub-inspector Sanjay Rawat, in-charge of Balawala Outpost. According to Rawat, on February 5, around 4.30 pm, the outfit members used social media to organise another public gathering at Donali Trijunction, where they gathered locals and provoked them. It created communal tension in the area.
“They threatened landlords and shop owners to evict tenants from other communities immediately, stating that if not done within seven days, they would forcibly remove them,” said the FIR.
Later the same day, they forcibly evicted Muslim vendors from the weekly bazaar near the primary school in Lower Tunwala. They allegedly declared the market as “Sanatani”.
“They also verbally abused and assaulted vendors from other communities, warning them against setting up shops in the future and threatening to kill them if they returned. Additionally, several videos were made in which inflammatory speeches were recorded,” the FIR stated.
A video of the incident also surfaced on the social media showing a mob putting up a poster to declare the local market as ‘Sanatani Market’. “Jihadis are prohibited to enter the market,” reads the poster.
“The Santani market has begun. In this area, only Sanatani market will be run. There will be no Muslim market,” said a man.
The mob roamed through the market identifying the Muslim vendors asking them to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and warning them not to come back to the market again.
