BJP youth wing leader held for inflammatory comments in UP's Kanpur

Kanpur: A BJP youth wing leader was arrested for allegedly making inflammatory comments on Prophet Muhammad on social media platform.

Former district secretary of the BJP Yuva Morcha Harshit Srivastava was arrested on Tuesday night for trying to vitiate the atmosphere through his posts, ADG (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar said.

Police have registered a case against Srivastava at Colonelganj police station.

The BJP youth wing leader was booked under sections 153 A (punishment for indulging in wanton vilification or attacks upon the religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc of any particular group or class or upon the founders and prophets of a religion), 295 A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and 507 (criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication) of the IPC and section 67 of the Information Technology Act.

Kanpur Commissioner of Police Vijay Singh Meena has said that people who indulge in hurting religious sentiments will not be spared under any circumstances.

Violence had erupted in parts of Kanpur after Friday prayers as members of two communities indulged in brick-batting and hurled bombs over attempts to shut shops in protest against 'insulting' comments on Prophet Muhammad by BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma during a TV debate.

"We will act as per a zero-tolerance policy. Since Friday, we have booked 23 such social media users," said joint commissioner Anand Prakash Tiwari.

Police sources said that Harshit had written a controversial post on Twitter with regard to Kanpur violence and had also asked people to recite 'Hanuman Chalisa' on Saturday following the Friday violence in the city that had left over a dozen, including policemen, injured.

The Kotwali police on Tuesday lodged another FIR against people behind two Facebook accounts and three Twitter handles for spreading 'fake and inflammatory content' about the June 3 violence, pushing the number of such users booked so far to 13, DCP East Pramod Kumar said.

The FIR has been registered against the operators of the Twitter handles 'Duggalsahab15', 'shivaisrael' and 'AkhandBharat', and two Facebook account holders Abu Zaid and Kaushal Patel, the DCP said.