Muzaffarnagar, September 22, 2013: Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Sangeet Singh Som and the Bahujan Samaj Party MLA Noor Saleem Rana were arrested on Saturday for their alleged role in fanning communal violence in Muzaffarnagar.

Mr. Som is an MLA from Sardhana in Meerut district and Mr. Rana from Purkazi in Muzaffarnagar district.

Their arrest comes a day after the BJP MLA from Thana Bhavan, Suresh Rana, was arrested in Lucknow.

Mr. Rana, who was taken on a 20-hour transit remand to Muzaffarnagar, was sent to 14 days judicial custody by a court on Saturday.

The court had earlier rejected his interim bail application.

“ While Mr. Som was arrested from Salava village under the Sardhana police station area in Meerut at 12.15 p.m., Mr. Noor Saleem Rana was arrested in Muzaffarnagar,” IG ( Law and Order ), R.K. Vishwakarma told reporters.

Mr. Som was sent to 14 days’ judicial custody by a Muzaffarnagar court for his alleged involvement in uploading a fake video on the Internet in the wake of the Kawal village incident on August 27, which led to the communal violence in Muzaffarnagar district.

Mr. Som has also been booked for allegedly delivering an inflammatory speech at the Jat mahapanchayat in Muzaffarnagar on September 7. Forty persons have been named in the FIR lodged by the police in connection with the mahapanchayat.

Non-bailable warrants of arrests were issued by a Muzaffarnagar court against 16 persons earlier this week. Among them are three BJP MLAs, Sangeet Singh Som, Suresh Rana and Kunwar Bhartendu Singh; two BSP MLAs, Noor Saleem Rana and Jameel Ahmed; the BSP MP from Muzaffarnagar, Qadir Rana; Bharatiya Kisan Union leaders Naresh Tikait and Rakesh Tikait and former Congress Minister Saeeduzaman.

The BJP has called for a bandh in western Uttar Pradesh on Sunday in protest against the “one-sided action” taken against its MLAs by the Samajwadi Party government.

Source: The Hindu, September 22, 2013