The Bharatiya Janata Party’s city President in Ghaziabad, Ajay Sharma, was among over 100 right-wing activists who were booked on Saturday for allegedly rioting during the wedding reception of a Hindu woman with a Muslim man. Shiv Sena’s West Uttar Pradesh chief Mahesh Ahuja was also named in the First Information Report.
Workers of the BJP, Shiv Sena and other Hindu organisations had allegedly clashed with the police and disrupted traffic during a sit-in protest outside the woman’s house on Friday. They had called the marriage a case of “love jihad”, and created a ruckus for around five hours, The Times of India reported.
The police said they removed the protestors by using mild force as they were interfering in the personal lives of individuals, IANS reported. “How can [the] police allow people to barge into someone’s house? We got a distress call and performed our duty accordingly,” Superintendent of Police HN Singh said.
The case was lodged at the Kavi Nagar police station under Sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting with deadly weapons), 336 (endangering life and safety), 341 (wrongful restraint), 427 (mischief), 353 (using criminal force to deter public servant from discharging his duty) of the Indian Penal Code.
The bride’s family told IANS that they had got phone calls asking them to not allow the marriage. “But both [bride and groom] are majors and mature enough to know what’s wrong and what’s right,” said bride’s father Pushpendra Kumar.
The woman is a psychologist and her husband, an MBA, works with a private company. They got married on Friday morning at a court under the Special Marriage Act.
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