With Section 144, preventive arrests, Roorkee keeps the peace

Starting Tuesday, the Haridwar district administration clamped prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC in a 5 km area around the village, and deployed five companies of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) and over 250 police jawans overnight. With the Supreme Court directing the Uttarakhand Chief Secretary Tuesday to place on record the state’s assurance that there would be no “untoward situation” or “unacceptable statements”, the administration stated that permission had not been granted for any mahapanchayat.

On Wednesday, peace prevailed in Dada Jalalpur, with schools and shops open and functioning normally. Police teams kept combing the area, with check posts at every entrance and exit. No outsider was allowed to enter the village without proper identification. At least four drones were deployed to keep a watch.

Haridwar SSP Yogendra Singh Rawat confirmed to The Indian Express that Haridwar-based Anand Swaroop Maharaj and Sindhu Sagar Maharaj were among those detained. Swaroop, one of the organisers of the mahapanchayat, was put under house arrest at an ashram owned by Dineshanand Maharaj in Roorkee.

Dada Jalalpur had seen communal clashes on the night of April 16, as a Hanuman Jayanti procession passed through a Muslim area. Several people were injured and at least four vehicles set on fire. Fourteen people, all belonging to the minority community, have been arrested in connection with the violence.

Swaroop had said earlier that the mahapanchayat would discuss the police action in the violence and “their failure to arrest the main culprits”.

After he was detained, he issued a video statement, saying: “I have arrived in Roorkee, but heavy police force is deployed outside the ashram and the way from here to there (Dada Jalalpur) has been turned into a chhavani (a military cantonment). I don’t know why the police and administration are so scared of us and why they are scared of Hindus… We never get involved in violence, we never spread terrorism. We respond to people in their own language.”

Asking members of ‘Kali Sena’ to maintain peace and not resist police arrest, Swaroop added: “How long will they stop us?… One day this volcano will erupt, and when that happens, it will engulf everyone.”

District Magistrate Vinay Shankar Pandey confirmed that after the Supreme Court took cognizance of the mahapanchayat, Section 144 had been imposed, meaning any gathering required permission of the administration. “It is to be clear that no permission was sought from us.”

Pandey added: “The organizers of the event have been demanding more arrests in the Hanuman Jayanti violence case. However, the law does not work like that. More arrests will be made based on what the investigating officer finds.”

He denied reports that several members of the minority community had left the village fearing police action, adding that only seven persons named in the FIR are absconding. “The investigation officer has taken a non-bailable warrant against them. The environment is entirely peaceful here, and if that wasn’t the case, the schools, colleges and shops in the village would not be open.”