A first information report has been filed against at least five members of a Hindutva group, Kali Sena, for making allegedly inflammatory speeches urging residents in Uttarakhand’s Dehradun to evict Muslim tenants and assaulting shopkeepers, The Indian Express reported on Sunday.

The incident took place on February 4 when a group of 50 to 60 persons had gathered in Dehradun’s Nathuawala area to protest the alleged sexual abuse of a minor a day earlier.

The persons “incited people, giving a communal angle to [the sexual abuse case] and delivering provocative speeches, urging locals to assault and evict tenants from other communities living or running businesses in the area”, the newspaper quoted the FIR as saying.

The FIR was filed on a complaint by Sub-Inspector Sanjay Rawat, who is in charge of the Balawala outpost. It named the organisation’s Bhupesh Joshi and his associates Vaibhav Panwar, Acharya Vipul Bangwal, Ajay Captain and Rajendra Singh Negi, a retired Army officer, among others as persons accused in the matter, The Indian Express reported.

Subsequently, the group marched from Nathuwawala to the Donali area “while vandalising signboards and banners of shops owned by individuals from other communities,” according to the FIR.

At 4.30 pm on February 5, members of the organisation used social media to organise another gathering at the Donali trijunction, where they allegedly provoked the residents. “They threatened landlords and shop owners to evict tenants from other communities immediately, stating that if not done within seven days, they would forcibly remove them,” the FIR added.

Later on February 5, the group forcibly evicted Muslim vendors from the weekly bazaar near a school in the Lower Tunwala area, according to the FIR.

They allegedly said that the market was “Sanatani”.

“They also verbally abused and assaulted vendors from other communities, warning them against setting up shops in the future and threatening to kill them if they returned…,” the FIR was quoted as having alleged. “Additionally, several videos were made in which inflammatory speeches were recorded.”

The FIR said that the speeches given by members of the group had created communal tension in the area.

In September, the Uttarakhand Police booked 300 unidentified persons after 11 shops run by Muslims in the Chamoli district were vandalised in response to allegations that a member of the community had molested a 14-year-old girl.

In March 2024, a local traders’ organisation forced Muslim shopkeepers in Uttarakhand’s Dharchula to down shutters for three days after two minor girls were allegedly lured by men from Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh. The organisation, named the Dharchula Vyapar Sangh, had cancelled the membership of 91 traders, mostly Muslims, and called for their removal from the town.