‘Those celebrating Pak’s victory will face sedition case’: Yogi Adityanath

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday said that the sedition charges will be invoked against those celebrating Pakistan’s victory against India in the recent T20 World Cup match.

“Those celebrating Pakistan’s victory will face sedition,” a tweet posted on the official handle of Adityanath’s office said.

The Pakistan cricket team on Sunday defeated the Indian side by 10 wickets in a Super 12 game in Dubai for their first win in 13 attempts over their arch-rivals in a World Cup match.

A senior police official said a total of five cases were registered against seven people in Agra, Bareilly, Budaun and Sitapur for allegedly using indecent words against the Indian cricket team and celebrating Pakistan’s vicory. He said one case each was lodged in Agra, Budaun and Sitapur while two cases were registered in Bareilly’s Izzatnagar police station.

The three Kashmiri students were produced in the court of the special chief judicial magistrate on Thursday. The court sent them to 14 days’ judicial custody.“During the course of the investigation, section 124-A (sedition) was added against these three Kashmiri students,” said PK Singh, the inspector in charge of Jagdishpura police station.

The case against the students of Agra’s Bichpuri campus of Raja Balwant Singh (RBS) Engineering College was registered on a complaint from Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) leader Gaurav Rajawat, who alleged that the three had raised “anti-national” slogans and praised Pakistan after the match.

The RBS Engineering College in Agra suspended the three students from the college hostel on Monday.

Nasir Khuehami, the national spokesperson for Jammu & Kashmir Student Association, said, “We are appealing to the regime in Uttar Pradesh to bring these students on the table for counseling instead of going for such harsh measures of sedition charges, FIR and suspension from colleges. This would ruin their career and may alienate them in the due course of time.”

In Budaun, the FIR was lodged under IPC section 124 A for sedition and section 66 of the IT Act against one person at the Faizganj Behta police station.

“Sedition charges should not be invoked in case of cheering in sports. No violence happened in these cases. England had been our bigger and worst enemy ever. But many times people in India do laud England’s team or players.”, said a Samajwadi Party leader on condition of anonymity