Two men were booked for threatening a mosque imam to stop conducting the Friday namaz and forcing him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ after allegedly attacking him in Sector 39 on Friday night.
“An FIR has been registered and a probe has been initiated,” Indian Express quotes Aman Yadav, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP as saying.
The allegations are yet to be verified, Yadav said.
On Friday, several Hindutva organisations disrupted the offering of namaz in Gurugram’s Sector 12A and Sector 47. Hindu mob chanting “Jai Shri Ram” and other slogans protested the offering of namaz in public places. They claimed that it could lead to law and order problems. Videos showed a crowd chanting slogans near a group of Muslims peacefully offering prayers. A large number of police and Rapid Action Force officials were deployed at the spot.
The accused were booked under IPC sections 153-A (promotion enmity between different grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), 253-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 34 (common intention), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 506 (criminal intimidation) at Sadar police station on Saturday night, according to police.
“The accused threatened me and told me to stop conducting the Friday namaz. Both threatened me with dire consequences if I didn’t heed their warning of putting a stop to the Friday namaz. I pleaded with them that we have to live peacefully and we should not spread hate, but they kept abusing and asked me to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’,” the complaint accessed by the newspaper reads.
Imam, further said he repeated the chant a few times as “he feared for his life.”
“They let me go but kept following me home. They also circled the area around my house on a motorcycle thrice. I, my family, and others in the neighbourhood are now extremely afraid and feel threatened. The entire experience has shaken us up and we don’t know when they [accused] can reappear and attack us,” the Muslim man told Indian Express.
