By Manish Sahu
Eleven men, including the head of a village, were arrested in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar district last week after a video went viral showing a group of people offering namaaz on government land in Turkaha village on Eid.
Among the arrested, nine are Muslims, and two others, including the 46-year-old village pradhan Kedar Yadav, are Hindus.
Dhawal Jaiswal, Kushinagar Superintendent of Police, confirmed the incident. Neeraj Rai, the then station house officer of Khadda police station (the jurisdictional police station), Om Prakash Yadav, Sub-Inspector, and Mohan Singh, Constable, were removed on charges of negligence and attached to the Reserved Police Lines, he added.
Yadav’s son Shiv Kumar said that a dispute over the government land was ongoing and that the district administration and police had prohibited any activities there. “Without our knowledge, a group of people held a prayer on Eid (June 17). We found out about it when the video of the prayer went viral the next day. The police arrested my father for not stopping them from offering the prayer,” he said. Yadav was a first-time pradhan.
Over the last few months, tension had been brewing in the Muslim-dominated Turkaha village as two groups attempted to capture the government land. While one group of Muslim villagers wanted to build an Eidgah, the other group of Hindu villagers wanted to construct a marriage hall. Proposals to build both were sent to the district administration but were rejected, said SP Dhawal.
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com. Read the full story here.