After a police investigation found that four Muslim youngsters were falsely accused of cow slaughter on Ram Navami, Agra police arrested four Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha (ABHM) workers for filing a fake complaint.
The police said that the ABHM members conspired with the rivals of the four wrongfully accused youngsters, and the entire plan was concocted to settle scores.
Among the arrested ABHM workers is Sanjay Jat, who claims to be the organisation’s spokesperson. He has previously grabbed local headlines for making divisive and communally heated utterances. The four ABHM activists have been charged under the Indian Penal Code section 120B (criminal conspiracy).
“Four ABHM activists and office bearers — Jitendra Kushwaha, Sanjay Jat, Brajesh Bhadoria, and Saurabh Sharma — have been arrested for hatching a conspiracy on the sensitive occasion of Ram Navami,” RK Singh, the additional commissioner of police (ACP), stated on Wednesday.
In addition to the four ABHM members, authorities have arrested three rivals of the four innocent youngsters for being active participants in the plan. “Seven people have been arrested in this case so far. One of them surrendered himself,” ACP Singh stated.
On March 30, Jitendra Kushwaha, an ABHM office bearer, filed an FIR at Agra’s Itimad-ud-Duala police station against four Muslim teenagers, stating that they butchered a cow on Ram Navami. Jitendra said that he and other ABHM members hurried to the scene, but the ‘accused had gone by then’.
CCTV evidence, however, proved that the four youngsters accused of cow slaughter were not present on the scene on the day in question, and the phoney report was submitted out of rivalry. Shanu (alias Illi), Imran Qureshi, four ABHM members, and three others reportedly plotted the plot.
Shanu and Imran both reportedly have a criminal history. They face half-dozen charges in several cases. Previously, Nakeem, one of the four youngsters framed by the accused group, filed a complaint against Shanu and Imran. The two were detained when Nakeem, an Agra Nagar Nigam employee, filed a complaint. This is why the accused couple harboured resentment towards him and the other three and plotted with ABHM personnel to frame them in a bogus case, the police said.
