By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter
Agastyamuni town of Uttarakhand faced communal tension on Friday when a social media post alleged rape of a 10-year-old girl by Muslims in the same locality. A group of people, apparently belonging to organisations of Hindu extremists, vandalised some shops in the Muslim locality of the town.
Locals have alleged that the most of the perpetrators belonged to Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad – the student wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
On Friday morning, at least 2,000 individuals gathered at Agastyamuni police station demanding justice for the alleged rape victim. Simultaneously, goons vandalized more than a dozen shops in the Muslim locality of the town.
However, the administration was quick enough to get a hold of the situation and issued a press statement soon enough to clarify about the alleged rape incident.
Mangesh Ghildiyal, the district magistrate at Rudraprayag district, posted a video on social media clarifying that the video that was going viral over social media was “fake”.
He said, “The faces of the people in the video are not clear. Neither the man nor the woman in the video has been identified. We haven’t received any complaint of a rape in Agastyamuni.”
“We are searching for the people who have been spreading fake news of rape over social media. A strict action will be taken against them,” he added.
According to local sources, Agastyamuni town has a very small population of Muslims. Many people in the city witnessed communal stress for the first time on Friday.
In October last year, Hindu groups attacked and vandalised shops in Muslim localities between Rishikesh to Haridwar in a retaliation of a murder where the killer was reportedly a Muslim.
The Uttarakhand police have registered three cases so far regarding the Friday incident. Tripti Bhatt, the Superintendent of Police In-Charge at Rudraprayag informed media that the senior police officers are conducting the investigation to identify those who spread rumors and are involved in the incident.