Mayawati statue incident: Key accused sent to judicial custody

A local court today remanded the main accused in the vandalisation of former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati's statue in 14 days judicial custody.

Amit Jaani, the main accused and chief of little-known outfit UP Nav Nirman Sena, and his aides Rajendra Singh Chaudhary alias Ferrari and Qasim Chaudhary were produced before Chief Judicial Magistrate Rajensh Upadhyaya, who remanded them in judicial custody till August 9.

The CJM also rejected the bail application of Qasim, the state president of UPNNS.

The trio, who were on the run after the incident on Thursday, were arrested by police and Special Task Force last night.

While Amit and Ferrari, were apprehended from Delhi-UP border, Qasim was arrested from Gomti Nagar area, IG (Lucknow) Asutosh Pandey said.

With this, the total number of arrests in the incident went up to six.

Three persons - organisers of a Sena conference Alok Srivastava, his son Arpit Srivastava and an executive of a PR agency Vishal Mishra - were arrested by police on Thursday itself, the day when the incident took place.

A marble statue of Mayawati was vandalised at Bhimrao Ambedkar Samajik Parivartan Stahl at Gomti Nagar area, triggering tension and protests by BSP activists across the state.

BSP alleged it was the handiwork of ruling Samajwadi Party workers.

Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav condemned the incident and claimed it was a planned conspiracy to vitiate the atmosphere in the state.

The local administration, on a directive of Akhilesh, had got the damaged statue replaced with a fresh one.

ALSO READ

Aizawl: Massive landslide in Mizoram kills at least 8, 11 still missing

Omar Abdullah apologises to family of Pak prisoner Sanaullah

Chit Fund Scam: Another chit fund company agent commits suicide

Rail traffic hit due to protests over Sajjan's acquittal