Communal tension gripped Meerut and Sambhal after the local administration held over 150 activists of Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) including former State president, MP, MlAs etc on Thursday afternoon. Action was taken by the cops when the protesters who were demanding release of BJP leaders and to revoke National Security Act (NSA) against two of it’s MlAs tried to take out a procession to ghearo senior officers. later all the held persons were released on personal bond.
Reports said that agitated with one sided action in the communal riots which broke out in Muzaffarnagar by arresting just BJP leaders or imposing NSA just against members of one community, hundred of Party activists led for former state president Surya Pratap Shahi staged a demonstration at Udai Park in Meerut on Thursday afternoon. The protesters also included BJP MP, Rajendra Agarwal, MlA from Meerut Cantt, Satya Prakash Agarwal, MlC Nepal Singh and other senior leaders. The leaders who accused the Samajwadi Party government for taking action just against members of one community and leaving the others just to appease the minority also demanded that NSA against BJP MlAs should be immediately revoked or the Party will launch further agitation.
Reports said that tension prevailed in the area when the BJP leaders after holding a protest meeting tried to take out procession to reach officers of divisional commissioner and IG Zone (Meerut) to ghearo out it against their `biased’ action. However as soon as the protesters left, local police first tried to stop them and later used force on them and arrested over 150 of BJP activisits included Surya Pratap, Rajendra Agarwal, Satya Prakash, Nepal Singh and others. They later took them to police line and released them later in the evening.
Meanwhile failing to locate the ten persons missing after the riots in Muzaffarnagar, the local police has converted their cases into that of kidnapping. “The cases of 10 missing persons were converted into kidnapping as their whereabouts could not be ascertained yet,” IG (law and order) RK Vishwakarma confirmed here on Thursday afternoon. local Muzaffarnagar police claimed that the family members of the missing persons had lodged their complaint in different police stations of the district. The last months’ communal clashes in Muzaffarnagar and adjoining areas have claimed 62 lives and displaced over 50,000 people.