30.08.2011
LUCKNOW: It's a tale of different treatment meted out by the police, in what looks prima-facie as two similar cases that took place within a month. While one relates to the desecration of a statue of former chief minister Mayawati, the other relates to the desecration of the statues of Lord Buddha and Lord Mahavira. An attempt to disrupt peace and harmony was the common motive in two incidents.
On July 27, activists of a little-known outfit Uttar Pradesh Navnirman Sena (UPNS) vandalised a life-size statue of former chief minister Mayawati near Ambedkar Memorial in Gomtinagar here. The incident took place minutes after Amit Jani, the national president of UP Navnirman Sena, told reporters at a press conference that if the state government didn't remove Mayawati's statues, as promised before the assembly elections, his outfit would do so in the next 72 hours.
After Maya's statue was desecrated, the Bahujan Samaj Party staged protests demanding immediate installation of a new statue of the same size and arrest of those involved in the incident. Under mounting pressure, the police booked the accused for sedition under Section 124-A, injuring or defiling place of worship or an object considered to be sacred by a section of people under Section 295-A, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc under Section 153A besides a few other sections.
Most of the accused in the case were arrested and sent to jail and the damaged statue of the former CM was replaced with a new one within 24 hours.
A little over fortnight after this incident, hooligans on August 17 on the pretext of taking out a march to protest against the alleged killing of Muslims in Assam and Myanmar after Alvida namaz at Teelewali Masjid, desecrated the statue of Lord Buddha under Chowk and Lord Mahavira under Wazirgani police stations respectively.
The hooligans also beat up cameraperson who were trying to catch them in action and damaged their cameras.
After protest by mediapersons for police inaction, three FIRs were lodged at Chowk, Wazirganj and Hazratganj police stations on charges of promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc under Section 153A, loot under Section 395, stone pelting under Section 336, 7 Criminal Law Amendment Act etc.
But the police could make the first arrest only on August 27. So far, five persons have been arrested in this connection.
Other than this, what has intrigued the legal experts is the different treatment adopted by the police in the two cases of similar nature.
"It's a clear case of discrimination. While in one case, the government had the fear of stiff opposition, who could make a dent on their votebank by staging protest and demonstration, in the other case, the very fear of any opposition was bare minimum," said senior advocate Atul Verma.
However, another lawyer Mridul Rakesh sees overdoing in the case of vandalism of Mayawati's statue. About charges of sedition, Mridul is more judicious in his view and says that a wrong in one case cannot be equated with other.
Another legal expert Nadeem Murtaza sees the two cases in different perspective. In the case of Mayawati's statue, the culprits had a prior plan to damage the statue while in the case of Lord Buddha and Lord Mahavir, it was more of a mobocracy.
The purpose of the crowd was not to damage the statue basically, Murtaza said and added that the police action in both the cases was justified.
