Poet Munawwar Rana’s son was arrested in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday for allegedly staging an attack on himself to implicate his relatives in a false case, reported The Indian Express, citing the Raebareli Police. Twenty-eight-year-old Tabrez Rana has been sent to judicial custody.
The police have already arrested four people in the case. “When he [Tabrez Rana] went missing, the police moved court, and obtained a warrant against him,” Additional Superintendent of Police Vishwajeet Srivastava said. “On Wednesday, a police team arrested Tabrez from Lucknow.”
On June 28, Rana had filed a complaint at the Kotwali police station, alleging that he was attacked by two unidentified men, the police said. Rana had said in his complaint that he suspected his uncle Shakeel Rana and his son Yashaar Rana to be behind the attack, according to The Times of India.
The police said that when they scanned the CCTV footage of the area where Tabrez Rana was allegedly attacked, they found several discrepancies, reported PTI. Raebareli Superintendent of Police Shlok Kumar said that Rana was seen to be alone in a vehicle at the time of the incident but had claimed that he was accompanied by another person.
The police said after investigation they found out that Rana had sold an ancestral property, part of which his uncle owned. His uncle had reportedly opposed the sale.
Kumar claimed that Rana faked an attack on himself thinking he could then file a case against his relatives to pressure them to remain silent about the sale of the ancestral property.
The police also claimed the poet’s son believed that the media coverage and sympathy from the staged attack would help his chances in next year’s state Assembly polls. Rana is planning to contest the Tiloi seat in Rae Bareli.
The other accused in the case are Rana’s friends Mohammad Haleem and Sultan Ali, and shooters Satyendra Tripathi and Shubham Sarkar.
Earlier on Monday, Munawwar Rana was named in a First Information Report in Madhya Pradesh after a Bharatiya Janata Party leader accused him of comparing sage Valmiki to the Taliban.
Sunil Malviya, who is the secretary of the saffron party’s Scheduled Caste Cell in Madhya Pradesh, alleged that Rana had hurt the sentiments of members of the Valmiki community.
Videos of Rana’s comment are available on Twitter but Scroll.in has not independently verified their authenticity.
In Lucknow, another FIR had been filed against the poet on August 20 for the same remark.
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