Court orders release of VHP leaders

Lucknow: The Allahabad High Court’s bench here Monday ordered the release of three Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leaders Ashok Singhal, Pravin Togadia and Swami Ram Bhadracharya who were arrested ahead of their Ayodhya march.

The court said that if the trio were arrested on fear of breach of public peace, they shall be released.

While Singhal and Ram Bhadracharya were taken into custody on Sunday soon after they alighted at Lucknow airport from a plane from Delhi, Togadia was arrested in Golaghat in Ayodhya.

The court passed the order while hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by Ranjana Agnihotri.

The VHP’s “84 kosi parikrama yatra” was banned by the Uttar Pradesh government. The march, proposed for August 28, 29 and 30, was aimed to press for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya.

The dispute is centred on a plot of land in Ayodhya of Faizabad district in Uttar Pradesh. The issues revolve around access to a site traditionally regarded as the birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram, the history and location of the Babri Mosque at the site, and whether a previous Hindu temple was demolished or modified to create the mosque.

The court on Saturday dismissed a public interest litigation against the state government’s decision to ban the march.

Hundreds of Hindu nationalists clashed on Monday with police outside India’s Parliament after being barred from conducting a religious march at a disputed holy site at the heart of deadly clashes between Hindus and Muslims.

Police used water cannons and bamboo batons to disperse 500 members and supporters of the World Hindu Council as they broke security barriers near the Parliament building.

Meanwhile, both houses of parliament saw repeated adjournments following noisy protests by BJP memebers over the Uttar Pradesh government not allowing the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s Ayodhya march and the SP protesting against an attack on its office here.

The Rajya Sabha saw two adjournments during the question hour before being adjourned till 2pm.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members sought to register their protest over the ban on the VHP’s “84 kosi parikrama yatra” by the Akhilesh Yadav government, while SP members continued to shout slogans over the attack on their party office.

Samajwadi Party (SP) members sought to repeatedly raise in the house the issue of vandalisation of its party office in Delhi Sunday.

Chairperson Hamid Ansari repeatedly requested the members to allow the house to run.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday condemned the “communal polarization” around the Ayodhya dispute and urged the people to reject attempts to mix religion with politics.

“The AAP calls upon all honest, nationalist and peace loving people of the country from all communities to reject and defeat this dangerous politics of using religion for cynical electoral gains,” it said.

A party statement accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Samajwadi Party of attempting to rake up communal issues for political mileage.

“Fortunately, the people of Uttar Pradesh and the country, especially both Muslims and Hindus, after having understood the intention of these parties, have ignored communal politics played by them.”

The statement accused the BJP and related rightwing groups of unleashing “a barely concealed conspiracy aimed at polarising Hindus and Muslims, especially in UP”.