The FIR was hosted on Sunday at the Chandpa police station. Three other FIRs housed in Hathras booked 680 people, including Bhim’s army chief Chandrashekhar Azad, for violations of Section 144.
This was followed by 19 FIRs on Monday in UP, carrying serious charges. At least 13 FIRs were linked to social media posts that “were intended to disturb the peace. Five people have been arrested amid outrage over the alleged robbery and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit girl in Hathras.
ADG (law and order) Prashant Kumar told TOI that social media posts had the “potential to create unrest in the state.” Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath later said that “foreign funding” was being used to hatch conspiracies to extend the division of castes and communes in the state.
The FIR on charges of sedition came after a complaint filed by Deputy Inspector Avdhesh Kumar, who alleged that “some anti-social elements have been trying to disturb social harmony in the state in a previously planned conspiracy against the government.”
He added that “the victim’s family was under pressure to make incorrect statements against the government and a political leader promised him Rs 50 lakh” for doing so.
“A journalist asked the victim’s brother to convince his father to give a statement saying that he was not satisfied with the government’s action in the matter,” the complaint alleges. He also said that medical reports had ruled out the possibility of rape, but the family had been “misled to distort the facts.” TOI had previously reported that the forensic evidence for the report, which found no “signs of sexual intercourse,” was based on samples collected 11 days after the incident.
The FIR mentioned up to 19 charges under the IPC Sections, including 124A (sedition), 153-A (promoting enmity) and four of its subsections, 153-B (indictments, claims detrimental to national integration) along with 195 (fabricating evidence false) and 195 A (threat due to false evidence) among others.
Two more FIRs, one registered in Chandpa and one in Hathras Gate, searched unknown persons for disturbing the peace and violating prohibition orders under Section 144.
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