New Delhi: Seventeen persons, including a former Bharatiya Janata Party MLA in Madhya Pradesh, were arrested for allegedly indulging in vandalism in two separate incidents in the city on Sunday over the Valentine’s Day, police said.
While one group vandalised a hookah lounge, another damaged a restaurant, they said.
A group of people with saffron towels wrapped around their necks, vandalised a hookah lounge – Junkyard Cafe – located under Shyamla Hills police station limits in Bhopal. They raised slogans of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ during the act, a police official said.
According to the Indian Express, the vandals identified themselves as members of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP.
Talking to reporters, former BJP MLA Surendra Nath Singh said that hookah lounges were making the youths addicts and they have become “breeding grounds of love jihad”.
Shyamala Hills police station in-charge inspector Tarun Bhati said, “We arrested Surendra Nath Singh and six others for rioting and other charges in connection with this incident.”
They were later produced in a local court, which remanded them in judicial custody, the official said.
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In the second incident, Shiv Sena workers vandalised a restaurant located under the jurisdiction of Habibganj police station, the region’s in-charge inspector Rakesh Shrivastava said.
“We have arrested 10 persons for rioting and other charges in this connection,” he said.
In past years too, members of right-wing groups have harassed couples on Valentine’s Day (February 14). The bogey of ‘love jihad’ has become yet another excuse for these groups.
Until recently, ‘love jihad’ was not a term recognised by any legal system in India. It was coined by Sangh parivar outfits to describe an imaginary Muslim conspiracy to convert unsuspecting Hindu women to Islam. Now, BJP-ruled governments in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and other states are putting laws in place, which many have alleged will be used to harass interfaith couples.
(With PTI inputs)