Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sept 26: Chaos erupted as police launched a lathi-charge to counter reported stone pelting by protestors after Friday prayers in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly as several protesters gathered in support of the “I Love Muhammad” campaign, the latest stand-off in a row that began weeks ago over an ‘I Love Muhammad’ poster.
The gathering on the campaign had occurred on the call of a local cleric and Ittehad-e-Millar Council chief Maulana Tauqeer Raza. Police said crowds gathered near the Ala Hazrat Dargah and outside the cleric’s residence in the Kotwali area, holding placards of ‘I Love Muhammad.’ Similar such demonstrations have been held across the country after an FIR was lodged in Kanpur against 9 named and 15 unnamed persons after a tent with an ‘I Love Muhammad’ poster on a public road during a Barawafat procession was removed by the police on September 4
Soon after the Friday prayers, the crowd gathered amid heavy police presence. The crowd continued to swell as some allegedly raised objectionable slogans. After some protesters allegedly pelted stones at the police, the police launched a lathi-charge to control the situation. Top officials are monitoring the situation and have directed authorities in Bareilly to take stern action against those disrupting normalcy.
Visuals from the area showed locals clashing with the police. As the protesters pelted stones during the demonstration, security personnel lathi-charged the crowd to disperse them from the area.
Some protesters were even detained by the police during the ‘I love Muhammad’ protest.
District Magistrate Avinash Singh later told reporters that the “situation is now normal and under control.” He added “No untoward incident has been reported. We are appealing to people to maintain peace and harmony.” IG Ajay Sahni said some “miscreants” came out onto the streets shouting slogans when the security force was conducting a flag march in the area.
Sahni said that videos of the protest and the stone pelting have also been recorded. “We are all on the streets. There is complete peace. There is no disorder of any kind,” he said, adding that the arrests of the miscreants will be ensured. Sahni said the strict action, which will be taken by the police, will serve as an example so that such acts are never repeated. After the situation calmed down, the police force once again was seen conducting a flag march in the area.
The row began on September 4 during a Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi procession in Kanpur, when an ‘I Love Muhammad’ poster was put on a tent along the route. Local Hindu groups had objected to the lightboard, arguing that it was deliberately installed in a mixed neighbourhood where Hindu festivals like Ram Navami are traditionally celebrated.
Tensions rose as both communities accused each other of provocation — Hindus alleging that their posters were damaged, and Muslims claiming they were targeted for merely expressing love for the Prophet. Soon, the issue was amplified by social media, with the hashtag #ILoveMuhammad trending widely.
Kanpur police registered cases against 24 people on September 9, citing the removal of the traditional tent and placing it at a new site. The police maintained that the FIR was against the practice of installing a tent on the road and not against the poster itself.
Hyderabad MP and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi weighed in on the controversy, saying, “If someone says, ‘I Love You’, then what’s the problem? What’s the problem with writing ‘love’? What message do you want to send to Muslim countries around the world with this? What’s the problem with “I Love Mahadev”? It should be done, it’s their faith. This is a way of socially boycotting Muslims.”
The campaign soon spread to other parts of the country. In Mumbai’s Malvani, clerics and religious leaders visited the local police station earlier this week to register concern over the Kanpur incident. They accused authorities of discriminating against Muslims by removing the posters and filing FIRs, while allowing Hindu groups to mount counter-campaigns.
On Thursday, a group of minority community members damaged several shops and vehicles and hurled stones at a village in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar district following an objectionable social media post. Police detained around 60 persons for the clash and rioting that took place late Wednesday night. Four shops and five to six vehicles were damaged in the attack.
Posters with messages ‘I love Mohammed’ cropped up in Karnataka’s Davangere on Tuesday night, leading to stone pelting between two groups of people, police sources. Unrest was also reported in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao, Maharajganj, Lucknow and Kaushambi and several cases were filed.
A counter-campaign emerged in Varanasi after weeks of the controversy, with religious leaders taking to the streets with placards reading “I Love Mahadev,” in what they described as a response to allegedly “provocative” attempts to unsettle communal peace.
The demonstration, led by Jagadguru Shankaracharya Narendrananda, accused those behind the “I Love Muhammad” movement of trying to “destroy the country under the guise of devotion.” He and other leaders alleged that conspiracies were being hatched to destabilise governments and divide society.
Meanwhile, the UP minister Anil Rajbhar condemned the ‘I Love Muhammad’ protests in Bareilly and said “these are people with a mindset that cannot digest India’s and UP’s development.” Mr Rajbhar said since their attempts failed, a “riot-fuelled mentality” has taken hold today.
“However, I want to assure those with this mindset that if anyone commits such an act or attempts to disrupt UP’s peace, the government will deal with them firmly. We will take such action that even their future generations will remember it,” he added.
State minister Asim Arun said any kind of religious or cultural event should only take place after obtaining due permission. “Any procession viewed as a show of strength is detrimental to the country, and divisive elements try to take India in this direction. But our government, police, and administration know how to deal with them,” he told reporters.
Another minister Jaiveer Singh said the purpose of the ‘I Love Muhammed’ campaign was known to everyone. “When no case has been registered against I Love Mohammad’, then such talk is extremely worrying, misleading, and a deliberate conspiracy to disturb the peace and order is being carried out by some people,” he said. Minister Sanjay Kumar Nishad also condemned the protest and said it was wrong to take out any procession without permission, “to spread religious frenzy, and to do politics on this.”
RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav took a jibe at the state government and the ruling BJP saying that the party “is number one on inciting violence. Whenever news comes from UP, it’s always of this nature.”
The UP Congress president Ajay Rai said everyone should love their God. “I love Muhammed. I love Mahadev. I love Ganesh Ji. I love Jesus Christ. I love Guru Nanak. I love Gautam Buddha. I love Mahavira.”
Samajwadi Party leader condemned the police lathi-charge and said, “The BJP should not have any problem if anyone says ‘I love Mohammad.’ Similarly, anyone can say ‘I love Krishna’ or ‘I love Mahakal.’ People are free to express themselves. It is the intention of this government to target certain individuals and carry out lathi charges brutally,” he added.
