Police have lodged an FIR against office bearers of Hindutva outfits, including Bajrang Dal and Vishva Hindu Parishad, for tearing down the wall of an under-construction building near Kanpur and creating a ruckus over it, officials said.
According to the FIR, the leaders of the right-wing outfits on Saturday demolished the makeshift tin-shed boundary and a newly constructed wall apart from damaging furniture and other infrastructure at the site in Banar Alipur, Shahzadpur village under Akbarpur Police Station area in Kanpur Dehat district.
A Bajrang Dal leader said that a church was being built without obtaining prior permission and the local administration did nothing to stop its construction. The FIR named 13 persons including Bajrang Dal’s district convenor Gaurav Shukla and another 70-80 unidentified people, an official said, adding that so far no arrests have been made.
Station House Officer (Akbarpur) Satish Kumar Singh said the protesters also misbehaved against government officials, including Tehsildar Ranvijay Singh, when they tried to persuade the protesters to not take law into their hands. They also put up saffron flags at the site, wrote 'Jai Shri Ram' on the walls, damaged CCTV cameras and statues installed at the site, an official said.
The FIR has been registered under IPC sections 147 (rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly in prosecution of the common object) 120B (criminal conspiracy), 186 (voluntarily obstructs any public servant in the discharge of his public functions) 323 (voluntarily causes hurt), 504 (intentional insult leading to breakdown of public peace) 425 (damage to property), 427 (damage to property amounting to more than fifty rupees), 353 (criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and 34 (common intention), police said.
Bajrang Dal’s 'Prant Sanyojak’ Ajeet Raj told PTI that a church was being built near a missionary school without the permission from the Kanpur Development Authority (KDA) and the district administration."We made a complaint against it. We demanded that the church be demolished or we would launch a large-scale protest," Raj said.
As the administration did nothing, members of Bajrang Dal and other outfits protested at the site of the under-construction building on Saturday for which they were booked under various charges, Raj added. KDA's Officer on Special Duty (OSD) Avneesh Kumar Singh also lodged an FIR against one Sanjay Joseph for allegedly making illegal construction for the past several months without seeking prior permissions and getting its map sanctioned by the KDA.
"The structure being built for the past several months was sealed on June 16 after officials found that the construction was being made without obtaining approval for the map," he told PTI. He said the site was sealed again on Monday and the police were requested to maintain a close vigil to ensure no illegal construction is done there.
