The intolerance the Bharatiya Janata Party keeps against Muslims, despite boasting of being torchbearers of democracy, is evident in a case in Shravasti district, where a BJP leader made allegations on unsubstantiated grounds against Muslim youths over an iftar they held three kilometres away from a Hindu ashram, on charges of preparing and eating non-vegetarian food.
This led to their arrest and ensured their re-arrest despite securing bail from the district magistrate, even though clear evidence of wrongdoing was absent and the legal grounds underpinning the charges remained questionable, The Wire reported.
Days after securing bail, eight Muslim men in Shravasti found themselves re-arrested following interventions by a BJP leader. The controversy stemmed from an iftar gathering conducted in a forested tract near the Sonpathri Ashram, an area situated within the Suhelwa Wildlife Sanctuary.
Allegations of cooking and consuming non-vegetarian food were invoked to register criminal cases, even though the spot lay several kilometres from the temple precincts and the evidence relied largely upon viral videos and conjectural claims.
On March 19, two FIRs were lodged at the Sirsiya Police Station, the first based on a complaint by a priest who alleged that Muslim men had consumed meat and discarded remains into a water stream used by the ashram, while the second, filed by a forest official, accused unnamed individuals of entering a protected forest area without permission and lighting a fire, thereby purportedly damaging flora and fauna, according to The Wire.
However, neither complaint identified concrete proof, and the allegations remained largely inferential.
Four men were initially arrested and granted bail by the SDM court the same day, yet the episode escalated when Hariom Tiwari, the local BJP Yuva Morcha president, met district officials, claimed a conspiracy, and wrote to the superintendent of police alleging possible espionage and security lapses near the Indo-Nepal border.
He also made unsupported assertions without documentary evidence, yet within hours, a second round of arrests followed, including individuals who had already secured bail, thus intensifying concerns over procedural fairness and due process.
Hariom Tiwari’s statements relied on photographs showing skewers and utensils, which he interpreted as proof of cooking meat, while the viral videos reportedly showed men carrying vessels but did not depict cooking or disposal of remains.
The complainant priest later conceded that no visual evidence existed of meat being thrown into the stream, thereby weakening the core allegation that religious sentiments had been deliberately hurt.
Police officials justified the subsequent arrests by citing the forest-related FIR, contending that entry into the wildlife sanctuary without permission constituted an offence, yet legal experts argued that the invocation of provisions related to promoting enmity under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita appeared questionable, as consumption of non-vegetarian food per se is not unlawful, and the absence of demonstrable malicious intent undermined the charge.
The developments triggered apprehension among the accused families, who reportedly fled their homes fearing further action, while one of the arrested men claimed that security personnel had inspected their vessel beforehand and that the iftar was conducted peacefully in an open area.
Legal observers suggested that courts may scrutinise the FIRs on grounds of insufficient evidence, reliance on uncertified social media material, and possible political influence, indicating that the case could set a troubling precedent where communal allegations, unsupported by verifiable facts, lead to arrests and repeated custodial actions.