A court in Varanasi has rejected the bail pleas of 14 people arrested over an alleged Iftar gathering on the Ganga, where they were accused of eating chicken biryani on a boat, according to a PTI report. The group has been charged with offences such as defiling a place of worship, hurting religious sentiments, public nuisance, and water pollution. Police later added an allegation of forcibly taking control of the boat, said Shashank Shekhar Tripathi, lawyer for complainant Rajat Jaiswal, city unit chief of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the report said.
“Additional chief judicial magistrate Amit Kumar Yadav observed that the charges are grave and non-bailable; therefore, there are no sufficient grounds to grant bail at this juncture,” Tripathi said.
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The prosecution opposed the bail requests, saying the offences were serious and could lead to strict punishment. It also argued that granting bail could affect the investigation and legal process, Tripathi added.
The accused were arrested after a video of the incident went viral last Monday. A complaint was filed the same day by Jaiswal, and the court had earlier sent them to judicial custody on Thursday.
According to Tripathi, the accused had “threatened a boatman and forcibly taken him along before holding the party on his boat in the river”.
Police submitted a report in court based on the boatman’s statement and eyewitness accounts. Based on this, they also sought to add more charges, including kidnapping.
“The Ganga holds deep and unshakeable faith for the followers of Sanatan Dharma. Thousands of devotees from across the country and the world visit Kashi every day to perform rituals and offer prayers using Ganga water,” Jaisawal had earlier said.
“In such a situation, eating biryani on a boat in the middle of the river and throwing its leftovers into the water is completely inappropriate. This act appears to have been done with the intention of hurting the religious sentiments of Hindus,” he alleged.
The case has been registered under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including charges related to defiling a place of worship, hurting religious sentiments, promoting enmity, public nuisance, and polluting water sources, along with provisions of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974.
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