NEW DELHI: A crowded procession in Marhera, Etah, took an ugly turn on Aug 30 when an elderly Muslim man’s skullcap was snatched from his head and thrown down.Two days later, six men identified from video footage of the incident were arrested by Etah police and made to publicly apologise.The procession had been organised to mark the 195th birth anniversary of Rani Avanti Bai Lodhi, the 1857 freedom fighter and queen of Ramgarh who raised an army against the British and died by suicide in 1858 when faced with defeat.She is remembered as a nationalist icon, particularly among the Lodhi community, with her final act coming to symbolise defiance against foreign rule.The grand march, which drew thousands of participants, was attended by Marehra MLA Virendra Singh Lodhi, former MP Rajveer Singh Raju, Union minister of state B L Verma, Sadar MLA Vipin Kumar Verma and UP state minister Kailash Rajput.The video from the procession, still circulating online, shows a street packed with people moving shoulder-to-shoulder, as a young man reaches towards an elderly man wearing a white skullcap, snatches it off his head, and tosses it.The elderly man, visibly taken aback, turns around as people continue to stream past him.The video spread rapidly on social media, with users questioning the humiliation of the old man.“Have we lost all basic human values that an old grandfather is humiliated in broad daylight?” one asked. Another wrote: “Is this the respect for elders taught in our culture?” Yet others said it was “deeply terrifying” that someone could be singled out and harassed in a crowd of thousands simply because of what “he was wearing.”Soon after, local police took suo motu cognisance and registered an FIR invoking multiple provisions of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) relating to rioting, promoting enmity between groups and acts prejudicial to communal harmony. On Sept 1, police identified the six men—Ramvakil, Sachin, Durgesh, Vipin, Yogesh and Rinku—from video footage and arrested them.In a post on X on Sept 1, Etah police said Marhera cops had taken “preventive action against six people for allegedly attempting to disturb communal harmony during the Rani Avanti Bai Lodhi procession,” along with a photograph of the six men sitting on the ground outside the police station, with policemen standing behind them.A second video, being shared on social media shows the six men standing in a line, facing the camera with their hands folded, apologising “to the public and the community for their actions.”The police action drew praise, with many calling it the “perfect response by UP police” and saying “such strict action would deter others from disrupting communal harmony”.
