85 BJP men jailed for violence in Moradabad to be felicitated

MEERUT: After the controversy surrounding the felicitation of some of the accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots of last year by the BJP, the Arya Samaj district unit is all set to once again felicitate 85 BJP party workers who were jailed for violence in Kanth after clashes erupted over a temple loudspeaker in Kanth, Moradabad, in the last week of June.
Although the BJP state president denied the involvement of the party in the felicitation ceremony, the local unit is quite upbeat about the function which is slated to happen on October 5 in Amroha.
“The ceremony has not been called by the BJP and is being organized by the people of Amroha and adjoining areas who feel indebted to those who spent 86 days in jail for fighting for the cause of Dalit Hindus. The felicitation is just the outburst of emotional expression of the public towards them,” said Laxmikant Bajpai, BJP state president who admits to have received an invitation in this regard. But the state president was non-committal whether he would attend the function or not.
When TOI contacted Girish Tyagi, the district president of BJP, Amroha, who also was one of those detained, he said, “It is indeed a great acknowledgement for the people who stayed in jail for almost three months and suffered heavily while upholding the self-respect of Hindus.”
He further said that people were detained in stages. First four were jailed on June 26, 19 on June 27, and 62 on July 4. Said Ashok Kumar Rustagi, president, Arya Samaj district unit, “It is indeed not a BJP function but, yes, there will be BJP leaders and a few representatives of RSS who will attend the ceremony. The ceremony will include the garlanding of persons released from jail on September 25.”
From June 25 to July 4, several clashes had occurred between local people and the police when the latter, out of pressure from Muslim lobbies, had removed a loudspeaker from a temple in Akbarpur Chanderi Nayagaon village.
On July 4, several senior BJP leaders, including MLA Sangeet Som, MPs Sarvesh Kumar Singh of Moradabad, Kanwar Singh Tanwar of Amroha, were detained briefly to prevent them from holding a mahapanchayat in that regard.
However, ugly scenes were witnessed near the railway track in which hundreds of BJP supporters resorted to stone pelting injuring the then DM Chandrakant in the eye.