Poster row escalates in UP, protesters clash with police

Protesters, who had gathered on the call of a local cleric and Ittehad-e-Millar Council chief Maulana Tauqeer Raza, clashed with the police outside a mosque in Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly after Friday prayers.

The police said a crowd had gathered near the Ala Hazrat Dargah and outside the cleric's residence in the Kotwali area, holding placards of "I Love Muhammed".

Visuals from the area showed locals clashing with the police. As the protesters resorted to stone-throwing, security personnel lathi-charged the crowd to disperse them from the area.

Calling the lathicharge a sign of the government's weakness, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said, "Governments function with harmony and goodwill, not lathicharge. Highly condemnable!"

Later, District Magistrate Avinash Singh told reporters that the "situation is now normal and under control". He added, "No untoward incident has been reported. We are appealing to people to maintain peace and harmony."

According to agencies, IG Ajay Sahni said some "miscreants" came out onto the streets, raising slogans when the security forces were conducting a flag march in the area.

"We are all on the streets. There is complete peace. There is no disorder of any kind," he said, adding that the arrests of the miscreants would be ensured.

After the situation calmed down, the police once again were seen conducting a flag march in the area.

The 'I Love Muhammed' controversy dates back to September 9, when the Kanpur police filed an FIR against nine named and 15 unidentified persons for allegedly displaying posters of 'I Love Muhammed' slogans on a public road during a Barawafat procession on September 4.

Several Hindu organisations objected to the move and termed it a "new trend", alleging that this was a deliberate provocation.

The row further escalated after AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi asserted that saying 'I Love Muhammed' was not a crime, asking why such expressions of faith should be seen as provocative.

In Mumbai's Malvani, clerics and religious leaders visited the local police station earlier this week to register concern over the Kanpur incident. They accused the authorities of discriminating against Muslims by removing the posters and filing FIRs, while allowing Hindu groups to mount counter-campaigns.

On September 25, a group of minority community members damaged several shops and vehicles and hurled stones at a village in Gujarat's Gandhinagar district following an objectionable social media post. The police detained around 60 persons for the clash and rioting that took place late Wednesday night. Four shops and five to six vehicles were damaged in the attack.

Posters with the message 'I love Muhammed' cropped up in Karnataka's Davangere on the night of September 22, leading to stone-pelting between two groups of people, agencies reported, quoting police sources.