Monkey’s death anniv triggers annual house arrest ritual of Raghuraj’s father

The Pratapgarh district administration has once again placed former Uttar Pradesh minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh aka Raja Bhaiyya’s father Uday Pratap Singh under

The Pratapgarh district administration has once again placed former Uttar Pradesh minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh aka Raja Bhaiyya’s father Uday Pratap Singh under house arrest and deployed force outside his residence, Bhadri Kothi, in Kunda assembly constituency ahead of Ashura, the 10th day of the Islamic month of Moharram, to prevent any communal tension, the district administration said. The 10th day of Moharram falls on Tuesday this year.

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The step has been taken as Uday Pratap has been trying to organise a bhandara (community feast) at a Hanuman temple, which lies on the Moharram procession route, on this day every year to mark the death of a monkey several years ago on the 10th day of Moharram, according to the administration.

Pratapgarh district magistrate Markandey Shahi said Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) was imposed in the area and Uday Pratap and some others, including Anand Pal and Ravi Vishwakarma, were put under house arrest. Section 144 prohibits assembly of more than four persons in an area where there is the likelihood of breach of peace and disturbance of public tranquility.

“Their movement has been restricted from 5pm on Monday to 10pm on Tuesday. The administration cannot allow Uday Pratap to hold a bhandara at the Hanuman temple as it falls on the route where people of the Muslim community from many villages take out tazia processions on the tenth day of Moharram,” he said.

“The input, which the administration has received, indicates that the motive behind holding the bhandara is to cause tension among the communities,” the district magistrate added.

Although, there have been no reports of clashes between two communities during Moharram for past several years, Uday Pratap’s house arrest has become an annual ritual.

Kunda, the assembly constituency of Raghuraj Pratap Singh, has a considerable Muslim population and the Hanuman temple at Sheikhpur Ashiq village, where his father wants to organise the bhandara (community feast), falls on the route where residents of three villages take out a tazia procession.

It all started when a monkey died near the temple on the 10th of Moharram in 2014. Since then, Uday Pratap has tried to hold a bhandara and Hanuman Chalisa ‘path’ every year. However, the administration has put a restriction on any event at the temple by Uday Pratap, arguing that although the monkey died on tenth of Moharram, it has nothing to do with the Hindu calendar. The bhandara can be organised on the same date on which the monkey died but as per the Hindu calendar, according to the administration.

Uday Pratap approached the Allahabad high court in 2017, but failed to get permission to organise the bhandara on Ashura.

Abhishek Tripathi, the Samajwadi Party spokesperson in Pratapgarh, said there was no logic in holding a bhandara on the tenth of Moharram when a tazia procession passed through the route. There was no tension among people of different communities in Kunda, but miscreants may create a rift between them if both events were organised on the same day, Tripathi added.

No representative of Uday Pratap was available for comment on the issue.