In Aligarh of Uttar Pradesh, the police arrested four men, identified as Jishant Kumar, Abhishek Sarswa, Akash Kumar and Dilip Kumar, for writing “I love Muhammad” in a bid to implicate their Muslim neighbours with whom they had a family dispute.
They wrote this on the walls of temples a few weeks after a controversy erupted during the Barawafat (Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi) procession in Kanpur when a banner that read “I love Muhammad” was displayed. Soon, posters appeared in various parts of the state, and there was also a counter-attempt by members of the majority community to display similar posters. The incident sparked protests and demonstrations across multiple states, including Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Telangana, and Maharashtra, leading to clashes with police and arrests.
A fifth accused, identified as Rahul, is absconding.
According to a Times of India report, the accused wrote “I love Muhammad” on the walls of four temples on October 25, following which a complaint was registered against a few Muslim youths.
Investigators realised that something was off when they saw that there was a spelling mistake, following which they began looking into CCTV recordings and call recordings and tracked down the suspects.
There was two separate family disputes that led to the accused trying to frame the Muslim youth.
"The investigation revealed that the accused conspired to write the graffiti to falsely implicate eight individuals with whom they were locked in land disputes. They wanted to portray their rivals as responsible for inciting communal tension," Aligarh Senior Superintendent of Police Neeraj Kumar has been quoted as saying.
"In the first case, Rahul had a long-standing property dispute with Gul Mohammad's family, which had also led to a clash last year. The second dispute was between Mustaqeem's family and that of Nishant Kumar," the SSP said, reported PTI.
Police have booked the accused under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and under Section 7 of the Criminal Law Amendment (CLA) Act.