The Uttar Pradesh Police on Monday arrested five people accused of burning copies of extracts from the Ramcharitmanas. It had named 10 people, including Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya, in an FIR.
The Akhil Bharatiya OBC Mahasabha organised a protest in Vrindavan on Sunday, in solidarity with Maurya, who had on 22 January claimed that the Hindu scripture contained passages discriminatory towards women and backward castes.
The case was registered at the PGI police station based on a complaint by Satnam Singh Lavi, who alleged that act of 'burning the 'Ramcharitmanas'' poses a threat to peace, as per police officials.
The FIR was registered under IPC sections 142 (unlawful assembly), 143, 153A (wanton vilification or attacks upon the religion, race, place of birth, residence etc), 295 (injuring on defiling place of worship), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings), and 298 (uttering words with deliberate intention to would religious feelings) among others.
Besides Maurya, those named in the FIR are Devendra Pratap Yadav, Yashpal Singh Lodhi, Satyendra Kushwaha, Mahendra Pratap Yadav, Sujit Yadav, Naresh Singh, S S Yadav, Santosh Verma and Saleem.
(with inputs from PTI)
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