On Tuesday, 28th January, massive violence erupted in Bheempur in the city of Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh over the installation of Dr BR Ambedkar’s statue on government land. The installation was stopped by the police as the statue was being built on the land that belongs to the gram sabha. However, the statue was reinstalled within one night. The police talked to the group saying that no construction was allowed on the gram sabha land.
Following this another rival group from the same village attempted to build a temple on the same land. The police force deployed on the spot stated that no temple or statue would be allowed to be constructed on the land. However, when the police moved to take down the statue from the land, people from the community began pelting stones at the authorities. Massive chaos emerged on the spot with people pelting stones and also setting 3-4 vehicles on fire. Amid this 4 cops were injured and were sent to the hospital for treatment.
The police confirmed the matter and stated that the issue had been ongoing for 2-3 days, allegedly due to local politics. “The two groups who clashed with each other are rivals and engaged in a fight over the upcoming local elections. We are investigating the matter, however, taking the law into the hands is unconstitutional and this shall not be tolerated,” said Aligarh police.
#Aligarh
— ALIGARH POLICE (@aligarhpolice) January 28, 2025
थाना रोरावर- ग्राम भीमपुर में परसों से एक विषय चल रहा था, ग्राम के लोगों ने ग्राम सभा की जमीन पर एक अम्बेडकर जी की मूर्ति की स्थापनी की रातों रात, उससे पहले उस काम को थाने के द्वारा रुकवाया गया था, आधा बना हुआ था उसको रुकवाया गया था, उसके दो-तीन दिन उन लोगो के द्वारा… pic.twitter.com/5hKpo6QqQS
“A matter has been going on in village Bheempur since the day before yesterday. The people of the village installed a statue of Ambedkar ji overnight on the land of the village council. Earlier, the work was stopped by the police station. It was half done but it was stopped. 2-3 days after that those people installed a statue at night again. Since then the administration and police have continuously talked, and since then the force has been present on the spot throughout the day. Talks were held at different levels. Today on 28.01.25, a representative board of them went to talk to the DM and SSP, under the rules, no construction can be done on the land of any village, and the statue cannot be installed either,” the police said.
“When the other party was talked to, they told that a temple was being built by the other party. We told them that the boundary of the temple would not be allowed to be built. And the statue will also not be allowed to be installed. Both parties agreed after talks with DM and SSP today. This was going on for almost two days, but when the police went to remove the statue in the evening, women and people present there pelted stones, and three scooters were set on fire,” it added.
The police also said that two policemen had been severely injured and that they had been sent for treatment. As per the reports, the police have booked around 14 identified and 200 unidentified individuals in the FIR.
OpIndia has obtained an exclusive FIR copy of the incident in which it has been mentioned that around 13 police officers who dealt with the stone pelting have been severely injured. The injured police personnel have been identified as Ramendra Sharma, Bhanu Pratap, Deep Kumar Sahu, Anjal, Jaydeep, Vikas Morya, Vivek Kumar, Rohit Tomar, Satendra Tomar, Nitish Yadav, Aneg Singh, and Ashok Kumar.
The accused persons booked meanwhile have been identified as Chhatrapal, Nirdesh Lodhi, Raju, Dharmendra, Sonu, Meena, Pavan, Deva, Bunty, Vunty, Vimal, Ranjeen, Jeetu, Ramprasad, Rajesh, Keshav, Kalicharan, Devendra, Gangaram, Sunny, Tinku, Vinod, Satendra, Rajvati, Geeta, Mante, Dheeraj and 150 others.
The accused persons have been booked under sections 191(2), 191(3), 190, 121(2), 132, 125, 324(5), 326(g), and 61(2) of the BNS, 2023. The other sections imposed against the accused persons are sections 3 and 4 of the Public Property Damage Act, 1984, and section 7 of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013.
Notably one similar FIR has also been filed in the same case accusing the accused persons of creating violence chaos and disturbing peace. Both the FIR copies have been obtained by OpIndia.
The incident took place at Bhimpura-Ibrahimpur village. The police fired bullets in the air, lobbed tear gas shells and baton-charged the crowd as the latter began pelting stones at the authorities.
“Right now the statue has been removed, there is an adequate force present on the spot, and the situation is under complete control. There was chaos for only 15 minutes. In this, the Pradhan and former Pradhan have been taken into police custody. This is generally an incident influenced by village politics. It is inspired by the upcoming elections, so we have taken them into custody,” Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sanjiv Suman reiterated.
