The mother and brother of a farmer from Uttar Pradesh, who died in an accident near the Ghazipur protest site, have been booked for draping his body in the tricolour, PTI reported on Friday.
Pilibhit Superintendent of Police Jai Prakash Yadav told the news agency that the farmer, Baljindra, had gone to participate in the protest at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border with his friends on January 23. He died in an accident two days later and his body was kept in a mortuary.
The farmer’s family came to know about his death on February 2, and took his body to their native place in Sehramau area. “The family covered the body with the national flag like that of a martyr and took it for last rites on Thursday,” Yadav added. “The video of the last rites went viral on social media after which an FIR was registered against Baljindra’s mother Jasvir Kaur, brother Gurvinder and an unidentified person.”
The police officer claimed that the farmer’s family had insulted the national flag, since only the bodies of people of national importance can be draped in the tricolour, according to Hindustan Times
The FIR against the farmers’ family members was filed under the Prevention of Insults to the National Honour Act. Sehramau police station In-Charge Ashutosh Raghuvanshi had filed a complaint against them.
Tens of thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at Delhi’s border points for over two months, seeking the repeal of agricultural laws passed in September. The protests had largely been peaceful but violence erupted on January 26, when a tractor rally planned to coincide with Republic Day celebrations turned chaotic.
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