Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani
Even as Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Monday appealed for peace and said that the state has not witnessed any untoward incident in the last 48 hours, police in Ahmedabad city arrested 80 people for rioting and lodged five FIRs in the last 24 hours till Monday evening.
Since a 14-month-old girl was raped allegedly by a migrant labourer from Bihar in Sabarkantha district on September 28, six districts, mostly in north Gujarat, have witnessed sporadic incidents of violence against Hindi-speaking people.
Speaking in Rajkot Monday, the CM said, “Due to intense efforts by police, the situation is under control, and no untoward incident has happened in the last 48 hours. We are committed to maintaining law and order, and people can call police in case of trouble. We will give them security.”
Rupani, who assured the chief ministers of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh of migrants’ safety in the state, also told them that “there have been no incidents of violence in the last three days”, as quoted by UP CM Yogi Adityanath Monday.
Addressing a press conference, Minister of State for Home, Pradeepsinh Jadeja on Monday said that police have registered 56 FIRs in 11 districts, with Mehsana and Sabarkantha districts having highest number of cases and arrests of 431 people.
At the same time, Jadeja said, 17 companies of State Reserve Police have been deployed in affected districts. “We have arrested around 450 persons for the attacks on migrants and even those spreading rumours on social media are being booked under IT Act… Providing security to all migrants is our duty and we are going to do that. We are not going to spare anybody who attacks migrant,” he added.
Meanwhile speaking to The Indian Express, Ahmedabad City Police Commissioner A K Singh confirmed that police have registered four FIRs in his district in the last 24 hours. “We had lodged three FIRs yesterday (Sunday) — two in Vadaj , one in Shahibaug. One was lodged in the early hours of October 8 at Hansol Airport Police Station. Around 80 plus people have been arrested in the last 24 hours,” Singh said on Monday. One more FIR was lodged at Sardarnagar later in the day. In all four cases, accused have been booked for rioting and robbery, among other charges.
Meanwhile, the Cyber Cell of Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch arrested eight people allegedly for expressing “anti-migrants” feeling on social media.