Telangana BJP MLA Raja Singh arrested again for remarks on Prophet Muhammad
The city police arrested Goshamahal’s suspended BJP legislator T. Raja Singh, at the centre of a major storm over his remarks, under the Preventive Detention (PD) Act here on Thursday. This was his second arrest in as many days; he was given bail on Tuesday.
Worried over possibility of law and order problems in the next 24 hours if he was not arrested, the police, which was under fire for a botched attempt to have him remanded on Tuesday as it did not issue prior notice, decided to book the MLA under the PD Act, and lodged him in the Cherlapally central jail. An arrest under the PD Act does not require issuing notice under Criminal Procedure Code Section. 41
Singh, who was taken into custody at his residence in Mangalhat, was sent to Gandhi Hospital for a medical examination. His arrest follows the government’s assertion that anyone causing law and order problems or creating communal disharmony would not be spared.
The arrest resulted in spontaneous protests with around 40 individuals, including BJP activists, raising slogans in Raja Singh’s support. Meanwhile, shops in Begum Bazaar, parts of Asifnagar, Indiranagar and Dattatreyanagar in Mangalhat downed their shutters.
The city police, fortified their presence in the Old City in anticipation of possible trouble in the night. Units of Rapid Action Force, CRPF and City Armed Reserve police have been deployed in sensitive areas of the city.
A few hours before his arrest, Raja Singh posted a video on his Twitter account saying that he anticipated his arrest under the PD Act, and that he could be banished from the city. Declaring that he was not afraid of “bullets, hanging, or jail” and that he would “keep fighting for the sake of ‘dharma’,” Raja Singh said that the police would dig up old cases against him.
Apparently referring to stand-up comic Munawar Faruqui’s old show where he allegedly insulted Hindu deities, Singh said that it was not acceptable for him or other Hindus if “our deities are insulted and abused and all Hindus will respond to such provocations' '.
His followers took out a rally from the state BJP office to MJ Market junction and burned an effigy while some raised slogans in his support at Mangalhat and Dhoolpet.
Meanwhile, security was tightened in Mangalhat, Dhoolpet, Jummerat Bazaar, Kulsumpura, Begum Bazaar and Afzalgunj, which fall under the Goshamahal Assembly constituency represented by Singh.
A statement of city police read, “Raja Singh Lodh, alias Raja Singh, 45, an MLA of BJP and a rowdy sheeter of Mangalhat Police Station, has been detained under PD Act as per the orders of the commissioner of police, Hyderabad, C.V. Anand.”
Declaring that Raja Singh indulged in “very blasphemous” utterances in a video he posted on Monday night, the police said as the video went viral, protests erupted in Hyderabad and some parts of the state and “drove a wedge between communities, police said.
