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Congress Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Tiwari on Tuesday said that those guilty of the violence that broke out in Nagpur last night should not go unpunished.
"Peace should prevail in Nagpur and guilty should be punished... How did the BJP give permission to its allied agencies to protest in such situations?... To divert people's attention from thier inabilities, they are fueling this," Pramod Tiwari told ANI. As the violence unfolded in Nagpur, BJP MLA Pravin Datke reached the violence-hit area of Hansapuri and asserted that this incident was "pre-planned." He said that the vandalisation of shops and stalls and the destruction of cameras were indicative of the same. "This is all a pre-planned matter. If there were two shops each of Muslims and Hindus, only the latter was affected. There's a (roadside) stall that belongs to a Muslim. Nothing happened to it. However, another stall that belonged to an elderly lady was damaged. The cameras were destroyed. It indicates that this thing was planned," Datke told ANI. Questioning the delay, the BJP MLA slammed the police administration for not standing with the citizens. Datke suspected that a large part of the mob came outside (from the other neighbourhoods). "I have to say that the Police were not standing with the Hindu citizens here. I don't know the reason behind it. A large part of the mob came from the outside...If the Police don't take action, the Hindus will be forced to take the next step. This is all I want to say," the MLA from Nagpur Central said. A curfew has been imposed in multiple areas of Nagpur city under Section 163 of the Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) following tensions over the demand to remove Aurangzeb's grave, read an official Maharashtra police notification. According to the official order issued by Nagpur Police Commissioner Ravinder Kumar Singal, the restrictions will remain in place until further notice. The curfew applies to police station limits in Kotwali, Ganeshpeth, Tehsil, Lakadganj, Pachpaoli, Shantinagar, Sakkardara, Nandanvan, Imamwada, Yashodharanagar, and Kapilnagar. As stated in the order, on March 17, around 200 to 250 members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal gathered near the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj statue in Mahal, Nagpur, to support removing Aurangzeb's grave. The protesters raised slogans demanding the grave's removal and displayed a symbolic green cloth filled with cow dung cakes. Later, at 7:30 pm, around 80 to 100 people reportedly gathered in Bhaldarpura, creating tension and disrupting law and order. The order notes that the gathering caused distress to the public and affected the movement of people on the roads. The order stated that the police had imposed a "communication ban (curfew)" in affected areas under Section 163 to prevent further incidents and maintain peace. The police have been authorised to close roads in affected areas to maintain law and order. Anyone violating the curfew "remains punishable under Section 223 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS)." (ANI)
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