On Monday, April 3, 2023, a Muslim mob vandalized Kotwali police station in Haldwani, Uttarakhand. The pretext – they claimed that some Hindus had ‘misbehaved’ with the Imam of a local mosque and had stopped those offering namaz. The crowd was shouting pro-Islamic and anti-Hindu slogans in front of the police station during their ‘protest’.

Islamist and left-liberal propagandists on social gave this entire episode an anti-Hindu slant, obfuscating the fact that whatever crime one party accuses the other of doing, it doesn’t justify vandalizing public property and ransacking a police station. Meer Faisal, a ‘journalist’ who has been posting misleading tweets for a long time, posted this tweet on April 4.

Several other Islamist handles – Millat Times, Sadaf Afreen, Journo Mirror, Ahmed Khabeer and others reported the incident along similar lines to malign local Hindus and deflect attention from the actions of the Islamist mob.

Old tactic of creeping sharia and area domination through public namaz?

According to media reports, the place where Namaz was opposed is Nazul land (Government land or land that is not owned by anyone). It is alleged that Muslims were illegally reading Namaz at this place, and when Hindus asked them not to occupy this place, the Muslim side created a ruckus. Even the building where Namaz was held was said to be built without getting due permission. It has been informed that the city magistrate has sealed the building after the dispute.

On the other hand, the crowd which has been painted as a group of innocent Muslims by Meer Faisal and others attacked the police station, blocked the road, and obstructed the government work. Police have registered an FIR against a total of 800 miscreants under sections 147, 332, 353, 341, and 427 of IPC. They are being searched based on CCTV footage. It is alleged that the unruly mob wanted to harm the common people as well, but were stopped just in time.

As per the Bajrang Dal district convenor Joginder Singh Rana alias Jogi, who led a group of Hindu organizations during the incident on 3 April, the accusation against the Hindus is wrong. He told that the allegations against Bajrang Dal of beating an Imam are false. According to Joginder Rana, Zafar Siddiqui, a lawyer of the Nainital High Court is the root cause of this issue; he used to invite outsiders to read Namaz in Sarna Koti locality, which is a Hindu-majority area.

Rana alleges that there are many mosques in the nearby area, but the Muslims are insisting on offering Namaz at the public land. It has been observed that several outsiders used to enter the locality in the name of offering Namaz, and they used to hurl abuses at the locals and harass Hindu women. He said that the allegations of manhandling the Imam in the presence of the City Magistrate and police are baseless.

According to Bajrang Dal functionary Joginder Singh, the person who is being propagated as Maulana is actually a suspicious Bangladeshi. Joginder said, “The age of the suspect who is said to be Maulana is about 23-24 years, who is called Bengali by the Muslim people themselves.” In the complaint given to the police by the Muslim side, his name has been mentioned as Maulana Shahid Hussain. When questioned by the police, he made a surprising claim of having been leading Namaz at the same place ‘for 13 years’.

Bajrang Dal had lodged an FIR against the Muslims gathered in the locality on April 3. The case has been registered under sections 153 A and 295 A of IPC for inciting religious sentiments.

According to Joginder Rana, the uproar created by the Muslims in front of the police station at night was part of the conspiracy to create an unrest in the locality and get an FIR filed against the Hindus, in which they were also successful.

Joginder said, “In the Tahrir given by the Muslims, an FIR has been registered against a person named Mukesh Bhatt who first and foremost opposed the Namaz.”