Noida: BJP functionary held, partymen protest at police station despite prohibitory orders

The Bharatiya Janata Party's former Noida Mahanagar chief Naresh Sharma was briefly arrested on Thursday for allegedly assaulting a tenant on his commercial property, police said here. However, BJP's district unit chief Manoj Gupta claimed that Sharma is innocent, even as around 20 party functionaries assembled outside a police station to protest the arrest despite CrPC section 144 being in force in the city.

Sharma had rented his shops in sector 22 to a man earlier this year and an argument had broken out between them recently over unpaid rent in the last four months, according to police officials. "The tenant had approached the police and claimed that Sharma had him assaulted over the unpaid rent. A non-cognisable report was lodged under IPC sections 323 (causing hurt), 504 (insult to provoke breach of trust) and 506 (criminal intimidation)," a police official said.

"Sharma was arrested from his house on Thursday morning but released around afternoon," the official said. While Sharma was in police custody, over 20 party activists and workers, including Gupta, gathered outside the sector 24 police station, demanding his release.

Squatting outside the police station despite CrPC section 144, which bars assembly of more than four people, they raised slogans against the district administration. Purported pictures and videos of the incident have surfaced on social media too. The Gautam Buddh Nagar police has extended till June 30 the curbs imposed across Noida and Greater Noida under CrPC section 144  due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Political, social, sports or religious congregations, protest rallies or processions are also banned during the lockdown period, the police had said. While several people questioned how political party workers were allowed to protest in a group despite curbs and the COVID-19 pandemic, the opposition Samajwadi Party took a jibe over the law and order situation in the state.

"In Noida, the BJP's mahanagar chief is sitting on a protest against the police. Accusing the police of falsely implicating a party leader in a case and harassing him. This is the situation of law and order CM saahab. Where the ruling party cries foul over false cases, imagine the plight of the common man," the party tweeted in Hindi with a picture of the BJP workers on protest. BJP's district unit chief Manoj Gupta said the police had no reason to arrest Sharma and claimed he was innocent.

"We had reached the police station to find out why was Sharma arrested but the police had no response to give. Eventually, they released him," he told PTI. Asked about the gathering outside the police station despite CrPC section 144, he said, "Party workers had on their own gathered after knowing about the development. It was natural for them to gather since the former mahanagar president had been arrested wrongly." Gupta, however, stressed that party workers and activists had gathered outside the station since there was no ample space inside.

"We were standing and then sitting under a tree in the shade outside the station. We were following social distancing norms too," he added. He said he would take up the matter with the district administration as well as with the party.