Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, April 27: Directed by the Supreme Court, the Uttarakhand government successfully prevented holding of the proposed “Dharam Sansad” in a Roorkee village on Wednesday by imposing prohibitory orders in advance and detaining some of the organisers before the event could take place.
“Prohibitory orders under CRPC section 144 have been enforced in Dada Jalalpur village near Uttarakhand’s Roorkee where a ‘Hindu Mahapanchayat’ or ‘Dharam Sansad’ was scheduled to be held on Wednesday and 33 people associated with the event have been detained,” officials said. The village had witnessed communal tension recently when stones were thrown at a Hanuman Jayanti procession there on April 16.
Haridwar District Magistrate Vinay Shankar Pandey said prohibitory orders were enforced in Dada Jalalpur village and in areas within its five-km radius on Tuesday evening to ensure that the ‘Hindu Mahapanchayat’ does not take place.
The move to impose section 144 came with the Supreme Court on Tuesday directing the Uttarakhand chief secretary to ensure that no “hate speeches” and any other untoward statement were made at the ‘Dharam Sansad’ in Roorkee and warning that it would hold top officials responsible in case of any hate speech being made.
On Tuesday, while hearing a petition filed by journalist Qurban Ali and former Patna High Court judge and senior advocate Anjana Prakash, a three-judge Bench of the apex court headed by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar said, “We will hold the Chief Secretary, Home Secretary and the IG concerned responsible if any untoward situation happens despite your assurance. We are putting it on record.”
The Uttarakhand Director General of Police Ashok Kumar said, “The programme could not take place as we imposed Section 144 (CrPC) in the area. Around 10 persons have been detained under Section 151 CrPC. We ensured that the restrictions are imposed strictly.” Anand Swaroop, the main organiser of the religious conclave, has been taken into preventive detention.
Section 151 says that a police officer knowing of a design to commit any cognizable offence may arrest, without orders from a magistrate and without a warrant, the person so designing, if it appears to such officer that the commission of the offence cannot be otherwise prevented.
“Thirty-three people associated with organising the event have been detained to prevent the ‘mahapanchayat’ from taking place. Those detained include Kali Sena’s state convenor Dineshanand Bharti, who had given a call for holding the event and his six supporters,” SSP Yogendra Singh Rawat said.
“The gathering will not be allowed to be held at any cost. Anyone who tries to violate section 144, in force in the area, will be sternly dealt with,” he said. A large number of police personnel was deployed in the area to keep an eye on the situation, the official said.
A three-day ‘Dharma Sansad’ held in Haridwar in December last year hogged national headlines for hate speeches targeting members of a community. The Supreme Court on Tuesday voiced concern that incidents of hate speeches keep occurring in the country despite its guidelines on preventive measures to be taken by government authorities.