On the eve of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s (VHP) proposed 84-kosi yatra, the UP Government on Saturday unleashed a crackdown by arresting over 1,000 activists of various Hindu organisations in different districts.
BJP MlA Savitri Bai Phule in Bahraich and VHP’s provincial coordinator Acharya Kushmuni were placed under house arrest as a precautionary measure. Security forces have already sealed the borders of all six districts, Barabanki, Faizabad, Gonda, Basti, Ambedknagar and Bahraich, through which the yatra will pass. And anticipating the main confrontation with the VHP leaders at Makhaura on the Saryu bridge in Basti district, about 40 km from Faizabad, from where the yatra will start on Sunday, DGP, Devraj Nagar is camping there along with senior officers. Major arrests are likely to take place later in the night.
Prominent VHP leaders including chief patron, Ashok Singhal, VHP’s working president Praveen Togadia and convener of the chaurasi-kosi-yatra Ram Vilas Vedanti have all reportedly gone underground to escape arrests. The BJP backed the yatra with leader of the Opposition in the lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj strongly defending it and rejecting reports that the SP and the Hindu outfit were acting in tandem to polarise the State politics. Sushma’s backing of the VHP came on a day her party and VHP came under attack from the RJD, SP and the Congress in the lok Sabha.
She claimed the tension was a result of statements being made (by certain leaders) and not the yatra. “There is no tension due to the yatra. It’s due to all kinds of statements being made. If people avoid making comments, yatra will be finished peacefully,” Swaraj told reporters. She also defended the decision to take out the yatra saying Hindu religion does not prohibit such activity in any period.
Meanwhile, a team led by the Faizabad DM and SSP carried out searches at the VHP’s local headquarter Karsewak Puram, Mani Ram Chawni, the office of VHP leader and president of Ram Janam Bhumi Trust, Mahant Nritya Gopal Das and about half a dozen suspected hideouts of VHP’s activists in and around Ayodhya.
The district administration, which had earlier issued arrest orders against 70 prominent VHP leaders, has now issued warrants against 300 more people. Ashok Singhal, Pravin Togadia and Ram Vilas Vedanti were among the leaders against whom the warrants were issued on Friday. An uneasy calm prevailed in Ayodhya. Markets and various temples which were overcrowded on the occasion of Sawan jhoola mela,that concluded on August 21 had a deserted look. It has been converted into a fortress.
Meanwhile, the lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court dismissed the public interest litigation against the State Government’s decision to ban the yatra. A division bench comprising Justice laxmi Kant Mahapatra and Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhaya dismissed the PIl filed by a local lawyer Mahesh Gupta. The PIl was dismissed after the Government informed the court that there is no record of such a yatra being held in the State in the past.