Kanpur assault: 3 held for forcing a man to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ get bail

A court in Kanpur has released on bail three people arrested for assaulting a man and forcing him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’, police said on Friday.

Videos of the assault, which also show Afsar Ahmad’s five-year-old daughter pleading with the men to let her father go, had gone viral on social media earlier this week.

In one video, men wearing saffron scarves are seen assaulting Ahmad, an e-rickshaw driver, accusing him of raising anti-national slogans. Ahmad is seen repeatedly pleading that he did no such thing, while his daughter tries to free him.

The police later rescue Ahmad and take him and his daughter to a nearby station.

“They [accused] had been booked under IPC sections that have less than seven years of punishment and as per court guidelines, people accused under such sections should be granted bail,” Govindnagar ACP Vikas Kumar Pandey said on Friday.

“The bail was granted by a local court and we released them after receiving the orders.”

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The accused – Ajay Rajesh ‘Bandwaala’, Aman Gupta and Rahul Kumar – were arrested on Thursday.

An FIR against the three men, along with 10 unidentified people, was lodged under Sections 147 (rioting), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.

On Thursday Bajrang Dal members held a protest outside the local DCP’s office demanding their release. they raised slogans of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Vande Matram’.

Police officers held talks with the members of the outfit, following which the protest was called off.

DCP (South) Raveena Tyagi on Thursday met Ahmad’s family, including the five-year-old child.

Police had earlier said the assault was linked to a month-old dispute between two families belonging to different communities.