Five men were arrested in Varanasi on June 23 after the Dashashwamedh police took suo motu cognisance of a video purportedly showing them cooking chicken and drinking beer on a small boat on the Ganges. The five were released on bail the same day. Curiously, the FIR mentioned Sections 196 (2) and 299 of the BNS, but the challan submitted in court showed arrest only under provisions of Section 170 of the BNSS.
BNS 196 (2) and 299 deal with promoting enmity between different groups on grounds such as religion, etc and deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings. Section 170 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) empowers police to arrest individuals to prevent the commission of a cognizable offence.
Speaking to Alt News, station house officer (SHO) of Dashashwamedh police station Santosh Kumar confirmed that the challan submitted before the executive magistrate stated that the men had been “shouting” at tourists despite repeated attempts by the police to pacify them, creating a situation that could have led to a “breach of peace”. When asked why the FIR charges and the video evidence of cooking chicken on a boat were not mentioned, the officer made evasive responses.
In sharp contrast to this, just three months earlier, 14 Muslim men who had been arrested for consuming non-vegetarian food while breaking their fast aboard a boat on the Ganges, spent over two months behind the bars before securing bail from the Allahabad high court. They were initially booked under seven sections of the BNS and later also charged with the stringent BNS Section 308(5) (extortion under threat of death or grievous hurt) and Section 67 of the IT Act, pertaining to publishing or transmitting obscene material.
June Incident: Two Sections, Same Day Bail
A video circulating on social media showed nine men on a boat, wearing winter wear, cooking chicken, displaying bottles of alcohol, and referring to the gathering as a ‘party’, allegedly on the Ganges. As the video surfaced online, the police took suo-motu cognisance and registered a case. Five of the nine accused — Deepak Kumar, Arun Kumar Sahni, Rahul Sahni, Ajay Sahni and Anurag Nishad — were arrested the same day and released on bail shortly thereafter.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.