Dehradun gym owner Deepak Kumar was arrested on Thursday for allegedly assaulting a trader. This incident follows his previous opposition to the harassment of an elderly Muslim shopkeeper by alleged Bajrang Dal members in January.
On Thursday, Dehradun gym owner Deepak Kumar was arrested for allegedly assaulting a trader. The police initially registered a first information report against Kumar under provisions pertaining to criminal intimidation and intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. However, they later added sections pertaining to promoting enmity between different groups and voluntarily causing hurt to the FIR. The complainant, Sanjeev Tonk, said that he had commented on a social media post by Kumar about the Ujjain municipal authority demolishing a portion of a mosque as part of a road-widening project ahead of the Simhastha Kumbh Mela. According to Sarvesh Panwar, the senior superintendent of police at Uttarakhand’s Pauri Garhwal, Kumar went to Tonk’s shop and assaulted him.
In a separate incident in January, Kumar had opposed the harassment of an elderly Muslim shopkeeper by alleged Bajrang Dal members. In a video of the incident that was later widely shared on social media, Kumar is seen asking the group why other shops were allowed to use the word ‘Baba’, but Ahmed’s shop was not. He said the shop is more than 30 years old and questioned why its name should be changed. When asked his name, Kumar replied: ‘My name is Mohammad Deepak.’ He later explained that he intended to convey that he was an Indian and that everyone is equal before the law.
Subsequently, a group of about 40 persons gathered near Kumar’s gym and shouted slogans against him. The protesters also blocked a national highway.
Source:
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