UP Police intercept four PFI men heading for Hathras
06 Oct 2020
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In a fresh revelation that the Popular Front of India (PFI), which organised the Delhi riots, is also behind the Hathras protests, the Uttar Pradesh police last night detained four men associated with the banned organisation for organising protests against the alleged gang rape and torture of a 20-year-old woman from Hathras, who died in Delhi last week.
The four PFI men - Atiq-ur Rehman, Siddique, Masood Ahmed and Alam - were travelling to Hathras from Delhi in a car when they were stopped and detained in Uttar Pradesh's Mathura last night, the police said.
Atiq-ur Rehman hails from Muzaffarnagar, Masood Ahmed from Bahraich and Alam from Rampur, while Siddique is from Kerala’s Malappuram district, police sources said.
Police also seized mobile phones, a laptop and some literature, "which could have an impact on peace, and law and order in the state", have been seized, the police said in an official statement.
During questioning, the men revealed they had links with the Popular Front of India (PFI) and its associate organisation Campus Front of India (CFI), the police said.
The UP police had earlier sought a ban on PFI for the organisation's involvement in violent protests against Citizenship Amendment Act.
The same organisation is trying to bring unrest in the country by making headlines of the Hathras incident of alleged gang rape of a 19-year-old girl raped on 14 September and her subsequent death two weeks after at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital.
"Police had received information that some suspicious persons were going from Delhi towards Hathras, after which suspicious vehicles were checked at Math Toll Plaza, Mathura on Monday. During this time a Swift Desire car was stopped and four occupants were interrogated, which revealed their relationship with PFI and its associate organization CFI, ADG law and order Prashant Kumar told reporters.
The UP government last year sought a ban on the PFI for organising statewide protests against the citizenship law, with support from opposition parties that criticised the CAA as "anti-Muslim."
The UP police have registered 19 FIRs have over the Hathras incident so far. The police has alleged an attempt to disturb peace in the state and listed sedition, conspiracy and promoting religious hatred in the main FIR or First Information Report filed in the incident.
Meanwhile, in what seems to be part of an organised chain of gruesome incidents, a six-year-old girl, who was raped in Uttar Pradesh's Aligarh 10 days ago, died in a Delhi hospital today, triggering protests by family members. The protesters have blocked the road outside their village as they make serious allegations against Aligarh police. The family has said that they will not cremate the child until their demands are met. The incident took place in Jatoi village area in Kotwali Sadabad region.
A PIL seeking either a CBI probe or a SIT investigation in the gang-rape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras district will be heard by Supreme Court today.
Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adithyanath had already proposed a CBI inquiry into the whole Hathra incident against allegations that the girl was not raped and that the parents of the deceased girl are acting in concert with the protestors.
