Three Muslim men, who had come to UP’s Baghpat tehsil from Barnala district in Punjab along with a 24-year-old Hindu woman, were allegedly assaulted by Vishwa Hindu Parishad workers in a lawyer’s chamber on Saturday.
Police said the three — identified as Kaleem (25), Nadeem (26) and Mudasar (28) — were from UP’s Saharanpur district and had been working in Barnala, Punjab, for 15 years. An FIR was lodged against seven unidentified persons on charges of rioting and voluntarily causing hurt after the woman filed a complaint. No arrests have been made so far.
Barnala police on Sunday visited Baghpat and informed their counterparts that the woman left her home in Barnala on January 10, three days after which her elder sister lodged an FIR against Kaleem and two others for kidnapping and other charges. The team then took the three youths and the woman back to Punjab, where the three were arrested.
Baghpat police said the Muslim men told them they were assaulted in a lawyer’s office, where they were discussing formalities for Kaleem’s marriage to the woman who is Hindu. Baghpat ASP, Sanjiv Suman said, “On Saturday, we were told that a group was harassing four people. A team rushed to the spot and rescued them.”
“During questioning, the woman told us she is from Barnala and had left her home on January 10 to marry Kaleem. Kaleem said they first went to Delhi to get married. A lawyer told them it would take time to get them married in Delhi and referred them to a lawyer in Baghpat,” City Baghpat police station SHO Dinesh Kumar Singh said.
“The youths claimed they were sitting in the lawyer’s chamber when some unidentified persons arrived and started questioning them. The three said they were assaulted when they raised objections. We are yet to identify the assailants,” said Singh.
VHP’s Baghpat district media in-charge Sunil Chauhan said, “We came to know that three Muslim men had kidnapped a girl and were trying to get her converted…. We immediately went to the spot…. Since all three youths along with a girl were sitting in a suspicious matter, we questioned them. The youths entered into an argument with us, following which a minor scuffle took place.”
