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Heavy police deployment prevented Nathuram Godse’s supporters, who had threatened to install his statue in some towns of Uttar Pradesh on Friday.
Godse, the killer of Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi, found support coming from Hindu Mahasabha, the organisation that was largely responsible for Gandhi’s assassination in Delhi 67 years ago. Even though the organisation was virtually defunct now, some fringe element associated with it chose to rake up hard-line Hindu passions by announcing a plan to install statues of Godse in at least two UP towns.
“No sooner than the announcement was made by some vague Hindu Mahasabha leaders that they would install the statue of Mahatma Gandhi’s killer in Meerut and Sitapur ,the local administration clamped prohibitory orders (under section 144 of CRPC) in both the places , disallowing assembly of four or more persons”, state’s principal home secretary Debashish Panda told Reuters in Lucknow.
“Adequate police was deployed in and around the areas where Hindu Mahasabha had proposed to install Godse’s statue. Two persons in the forefront of the pro-Godse campaign were taken into police custody, after which none has come forward to carry out the much hyped plan so far,” Panda added.
According to him, “Hindu Mahasabha has hardly any existence in UP. It was only over the recent past that a handful of persons proclaiming to be volunteers of the organization had emerged on the scene. However they have no mass support base anywhere.”
Yet the state government is taking no chances and an alert remains in place to watch out for any such element that may attempt to spark off trouble.
“Police is maintaining a round-the-clock vigil to prevent any such lumpen element from indulging in any kind of violation of the prohibitory orders in place,” he said.
Reports coming in from Meerut (about 400 km from Lucknow) said that a heavy police contingent had nearly cordoned off a local temple on Sharda road, where a local Hindu Mahasabha leader Ashok Sharma had threatened to install Godse’s statue. Likewise, cops were maintaining a strict vigil in and around a temple in Para village of Siddhauli town in Sitapur district (about 50 km from Lucknow), where a similar announcement was made by a Hindu Mahasabha activist Kamlesh Tiwari . Both Sharma and Tiwari were currently under police custody.