Communal tensions erupted at Dehradun railway stations after a Muslim girl, hailing from Badaun, UP, came to the city to meet a Hindu youth. The incident took place on Thursday night when hundreds of people clashed over the interfaith couple, hurling communal slurs at each other, reports said.
The incident came to light after passengers at the railway station witnessed the couple engaged in an animated argument. The RPF personnel took notice of the brawl and intervened, taking the duo along with them.
When the RPF personnel contacted the girl’s family members, they found out that she was from Uttar Pradesh’s Badaun and had been missing for a day. She had reportedly travelled to marry a Hindu boy in Dehradun.
Meanwhile, clashes erupted between the two groups at the station over the couple. As per reports, while the police had taken the girl into custody, news had spread and an Islamist mob gathered from nearby areas. Local Hindus also organised came out in numbers. One group was reportedly led by Bajrang Dal leader Vikas Verma while the other was led by Asif Qureshi, Azad Samaj Party’s city unit head for Dehradun.
The clashes eventually led to stone-pelting following which police intervened. Over 100 people, including Vikas Verma, were detained in connection with the incident.
Verma’s detention, however, sparked massive widespread outrage across the city, with hundreds of people coming out on the streets to oppose the arrests made in the Dehradun stone-pelting incident. Videos of protests show thousands demonstrating at the Clock Tower in Dehradun against police action in the stone-pelting incident at the railway station.
#WATCH | Uttarakhand: People including Bajrang Dal workers hold protest at Clock Tower in Dehradun against the police and administration after 4 people were arrested in connection with the stone pelting incident at Dehradun Railway Station last night. pic.twitter.com/ZxM3XzSx4s
— ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) September 27, 2024
Verma was subsequently released by the police.
Following the incident, Dehradun SSP Ajay Singh shared details about the matter. Singh said the clashes were triggered after a minor Muslim girl had travelled from Badaun to meet the youth.
#WATCH | Uttarakhand: On stone pelting incident at Dehradun railway station, Ajay Singh, SSP Dehradun says, " Yesterday a minor girl and youth met at a railway station and then few people gathered there…later we came to know that the girl came from Budaun and missing complaint… pic.twitter.com/W2y4Ny2EEj
— ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) September 27, 2024
“A police team reached the spot… but people from some organisations and people from different communities gathered there… sloganeering and stone pelting took place between the people of the two communities, but there were also many such people whom we couldn’t identify who they were and which organisations they belong to. Police dispersed the crowd and FIR was registered against this incident… today many people from both communities were detained for interrogation and also we asked them to identify people who were part of the protest so that we could arrest them…” Singh said.
