Gandhinagar: Vishwa Hindu Parishad under the #isupportpolice on Thursday stated that it stands with four police men who are given 14-day jail term by the Gujarat High Court today for publicly beating up the accused who pelted stones over Navratri garba event of Hindus.

The Gujarat High Court has today given 14-day jail term to four policemen who beaten up in public the persons accused of stone pelting over Hindu garba event, video of which had gone viral. As the convicted police men urged for stay on the sentence so that they can approach the Supreme Court, the High Court in its order stayed the punishment.

પથ્થરબાજોને કાયદાનું ભાન કરાવતી ખેડા પોલીસની કાર્યવાહી પર નામદાર હાઈકોર્ટે જે સજા ફટકારી છે, તેમાં પુનઃવિચાર થાય તેમ સરકારે આગળ આવવું જોઈએ. ક્યારેક લો એન્ડ ઓર્ડર સાચવવા અને સમાજમાં દાખલો બેસે તેમ કરતાં ચુક થાય છે, જેનું પરિણામ કે સજા એવી ન હોવી જોઈએ કે પોલીસકર્મીઓના પરિવારને… pic.twitter.com/8koosOX7i6

— Hitendrasinh Rajput (@TheHitendrasinh) October 19, 2023

Reacting to this, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) office bearer Hitendra Rajput on his Facebook post stated: ‘Govt should come forward to reconsider the punishment passed by the honorable high court on the action of Kheda police who made stone pelters aware of the law. Sometimes mistakes are made to maintain law and order and to set a precedent in the society, the consequence or punishment should not be such that the families of the policemen have to suffer, besides such incidents also bring down the morale of the police. Vishwa Hindu Parishad stands with all these policemen and their families.’

In video: pic.twitter.com/NKXmnOjwHQ

— DeshGujarat (@DeshGujarat) October 4, 2022

In October 2022, Navratri celebrations in Undhela village of Kheda district witnessed violence as a group led by two Muslims pelted stones at Hindus.

“During Navratri celebrations in Undhela village last night, a group led by two people named Arif & Zahir started creating a disturbance. Later they pelted stones in which 6 people got injured”, said Rajesh Gadhiya, DSP Kheda Police.

DSP Nadiad told the press that 6-7 people were injured and sarpanch’s car was damaged and stones were also hurled inside the temple.

“There were 150-200 people including women in the mob. Sarpanch has identified 43 people and gave a complaint against them” said the Nadiad DSP, VR Bajpai.

The locals had said, they do garba in chawk only, but on the evening when Garba event was attacked, they went to perform five rounds of garba to other location as it was Ashtami (8th night of Navratri) and as it was Sarpanch’s Badha(pledge) to do that. Some children had dressed as Ram, some as Ganpati for this event. As soon as just three-four Garba were performed, the stone pelting attack took place, very likely in pre-planned manner.

Sanghavi was addressing youths at Gujarat University today. He was apparently speaking in reference to the women & children attacked in Undhela village of Kheda district while playing Garba. Video of police canning the accused had gone viral, followed by uproar over human rights pic.twitter.com/oVgCIDLsCJ

— DeshGujarat (@DeshGujarat) October 7, 2022

Amid atmosphere of fear among villagers, Police had nabbed the accused and started caning them briefly at public place in the village. The local Hindus were cheering police in support of this action, video of which had gone viral.

When human rights issue was raised over this issue, Minister of State for Home, Harsh Sanghavi had made a remark, what about human rights of those women and children who were stoned for playing garba in chowk of village? What about one who had got head injury due to such stone pelting? DeshGujarat