The controversy over tonsuring of the head of two kathavachaks (religious speakers) belonging to the Yadav community by upper-caste men in Uttar Pradesh’s Etawah district snowballed into violence on Thursday when a large number of people protesting against the registration of an FIR against the duo allegedly pelted the police with stones and attacked their vehicles, officials said.
The clash occurred when the protesters were trying to enter Dadarpur village in Mahewa block where the purported tonsuring incident took place on June 21, it is learnt. The FIR against the two was registered earlier in the day on the charges of “fraud” for hiding their caste and identifying themselves as Brahmin.
Later, the police arrested at least 19 people allegedly involved in the clash.
Meanwhile, Tourism Minister Jaiveer Singh claimed that the incident was a fallout of provocative statements by Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav even as Yadav and his party leaders continued to allege that PDA (Pichhde, Dalit and Alpsankhyak) were being targeted in the state.
The minister said, “Police have been deployed in the area and the law and order has been ensured. Ninteen rioters have been identified and arrested. The government strongly believes that those who take law and order in their hands and spread anarchy would not be spared at any cost. They might be of any caste, sect or religion. Those who indulge in crime, their caste is crime only.”
“Only criminals have been arrested and it has nothing to do with any caste,” he added.
“The incident took place after Akhilesh Yadav ji constantly tried to give it a caste angle. He made baseless allegations against the Brahmin community and misled people. He and his party have always tried to create a divide based on caste while the BJP always tries to provide justice to all no matter which caste they belong to. Even police vehicles were attacked,” Singh said.
Story continues below this ad
Etawah SSP Brijesh Srivastava said, “We came to know through social media in the morning that some organisations were gathering in the Bakewar police station area to protest against an incident that took place three days back. We deployed police force at Dadarpur village to prevent any untoward incident. Around 1:30pm, a large number of people gathered on the road, and many were dispersed. But nearly 70-80 people tried to enter Dadarpur village despite being warned by the police, leading to a law and order situation. Nineteen people have been arrested, while 13 vehicles have been seized.”
A video had gone viral on social media a few days ago, wherein a group of upper-caste men were seen tonsuring the head of the two kathavachaks — Mukut Mani Yadav and Sant Singh Yadav.
Taking cognisance of the video, the police had arrested four persons involved in tonsuring the head of the two.
