Aligarh: It caused tensions on Saturday after graffiti stating I love Muhammad was found on the walls of five temples in the Bhagwanpur and Bulaqigarh village, leading to the heavy presence of the police force in the locality. Scenes of high crime rate were visited by senior police officials with forensic experts and reviewed CCTV footage of adjacent areas to identify the people who did it.
Eight individuals mentioned as Mustaqeem, Gul Mohammad, Sulaiman, Sonu, Allahbaksh, Hameed, and Yousuf are registered as the case. The Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Neeraj Kumar, in a statement, said that the incident was a matter of concern and they were investigating it to the latter. There will be no one left guilty without punishment. There is also a potential land dispute angle of the case that the authorities are investigating.
Local organisations are also interested in the controversy. Gyanendra Singh Chauhan, the All-India Vice President of the Karni Sena, who filed the complaint with the police, claimed that instead of taking direct action against the culprit, the local police first detained the villager who reported the incident to the police. Chauhan also alleged that parts of the police officers tried to remove the slogans on the temple wall in an attempt to calm down the situation, which posed a question on objectivity and openness in the inquiry.
This is after a similar scandal at the beginning of the year in Kanpur, where the police charged 24 people with the offence of erecting boards bearing the same slogan in an Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi procession on September 4. The Kanpur incident had triggered protests in Uttar Pradesh and other states, and it was indicative of how sensitive these incidents could be and how it could lead to communal tension.
The government in Aligarh has called on the people to remain calm as the investigation goes on. Police have also guaranteed that any leads, such as local differences and external forces, will be investigated to the letter to hold accountable and avoid any form of escalation of violence.
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