Two men who used Muslim names to make alleged bomb threat to Adityanath and Ram temple arrested
The threat messages were publicised on social media to gain media attention and political leverage, the police said.
Two men were arrested on Wednesday for making threats to kill Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath and blow up Ayodhya’s Ram temple in bomb blasts, the police said, reported PTI.
The men had made the alleged threats against Adityanath, Special Task Force chief Amitabh Yash and the Ram temple in Ayodhya in a post on social media platform X in November.
The Special Task Force arrested the two – Omprakash Mishra and Tahar Singh – from the Vibhuti Khand area of Lucknow’s Gomti Nagar, the police statement said. Both men are residents of Gonda.
The two had allegedly used email IDs with Muslim names to make the threats.
STF has arrested two accused Tahar Singh and Om Prakash Mishra from Lucknow in connection with the threat to bomb CM Yogi Adityanath and Ayodhya's Ram Mandir. They had used fake email IDs in the name of Alam Ansari Khan and Zubair Khan to send threats. pic.twitter.com/9OFWRjbG0z
— Abhishek (@AbhishekSay) January 3, 2024
Deputy Superintendent of Police Pramesh Kumar Shukla, who is heading the investigation, said that the accused had been acting under the instructions of Devendra Tiwari, who ran non-governmental organisations Bharatiya Gau Seva Parishad and Bharatiya Kisan Manch, India Today reported.
A technical analysis by the police found that Singh had created the email accounts and Mishra sent the threat messages.
The alleged threat messages were publicised on Tiwari’s social media account to gain media attention and political leverage, the police said.
In November, Scroll reported about a new but insidious trend of making inflammatory posts on social media while pretending to be Muslims that has found increased use over the last couple of years.
Experts say that in a communally polarised environment, the identity of an accused or suspect in such cases gets more amplified than the crime itself, thus intensifying Islamophobia in India.