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VHP leader booked for arms training to women cadres in Varanasi
A case has been registered at Sigra police station against a VHP leader who used only his first name Diwakar and some other people, police said.
A Vishwa Hindu Parishd (VHP) leader is among several persons booked by police for allegedly instigating religious sentiments by imparting arms training to women cadres of a right-wing affiliate, police said on Tuesday.
A case has been registered at Sigra police station against a VHP leader who used only his first name Diwakar and some other people, police said.
The case was lodged following a complaint by Sigra police inspector Anupam Srivastava.
At least 70 members of the Durga Vahini, the VHP’s women’s wing, were trained to shoot with air rifles and fight with cane sticks during the controversial camp at Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Varanasi camp came close to a similar training programme organised by another VHP affiliate, the Bajrang Dal, at Ayodhya. The earlier camp too had run into a controversy after a video surfaced, showing activists fighting volunteers dressed as terrorists in robes and skull caps.
A Bajrang Dal leader was arrested over the camp which the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) said was organised to polarise the state ahead of the assembly polls next year.
The VHP is affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), considered the ideological fountainhead of the ruling BJP at the Centre.
The VHP had defended the weapons training programme at Ayodhya as a routine exercise and said such training was “within the ambit of the law”.
Read | After row in UP, Bajrang Dal to hold self-defence camps in Rajasthan
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