The Uttarakhand police on Saturday, January 15, picked up Yati Narasimhanand from his dharna site in Haridwar in connection with the case of Dharma Sansad where alleged hate speeches against Muslims were delivered. Yati Narasimhanand has been brought to a police station, Haridwar Superintendent of Police (City) Swatantra Kumar told PTI. However, the officer said, it was technically not an arrest.
Narasimhanand, the controversial priest of Dasna temple in Ghaziabad, had organised the event in Haridwar from December 17-19. He was picked up from where he was sitting on a dharna in protest against the recent arrest of another accused in the case, Jitendra Narayan Tyagi.
Tyagi was formerly known as Waseem Rizvi and changed his name after converting to Hinduism. Tyagi who headed the Uttar Pradesh Shia Waqf Board before converting to Hinduism was the first person to have been arrested in connection with the case a couple of days back. Further action will depend on how the investigation progresses, the official said. Both Tyagi and Narasimhanand are among those named accused in the FIRs lodged in connection with the event.
The Uttarakhand government has been under tremendous pressure from different quarters to take action against those who had delivered the speeches at the event. Even the Supreme Court had pulled up the state government earlier this week for not acting against the guilty though so many days have passed after the incident.
In another development, a journalist, one of the petitioners in the Supreme Court seeking probe and action against those who allegedly made hate speeches during two events held in Haridwar and Delhi, has written to District Magistrates (DMs) of Aligarh and Haridwar to take preventive action to ensure that no such speeches are made there. In their plea filed in the apex court, the petitioners have also sought a direction for an "independent, credible and impartial investigation" by an SIT into the incidents of hate speeches against the Muslim community.