Raja of Kunda Uday Pratap Singh, father of Jansatta Dal MLA Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, has been placed under house arrest at Bhadri Mahal, his palace, in Beti on Monday by the district police.
Police and PAC personnel have been deployed outside Bhadri Mahal while local authorities pasted a notice outside.
The district administration has taken action against Uday Pratap Singh to avoid a confrontation between the two communities during Moharram. Local authorities here confirmed that he has been placed under house arrest in his palace for three days.
Uday Pratap Singh wrote on the social media platform X on Monday, “The administration has found a solution to this. Arrest anyone who opposes Muslims, as we have been doing since morning. The administration stopped the bhandara (public feasting) of Hindus which has been going on for many years in Shekhpur calling it a new practice, but they are not stopping Muslims from setting up a new gate across the road in Majhilgaon.”
In 2012, when a monkey died on the roadside in Shekhpur village on the Moharram day, it was said it was shot. Since then, the villagers built a Hanuman temple there and started organising Hanuman recitation and bhandara on Moharram under the patronage of Singh.
What is special about the Bhandara is that it is held only on the day of Moharram. For two initial years, both the Bhandara and Moharram processions took place simultaneously. In the year 2015, the Muslim community did not take out the tazia procession objecting to the Bhandara and flags at the temple. When the matter came to a head, the administration had to intervene.
In 2016, the district administration withheld permission to the Bhandara leading to further escalation of tension in Shekhpur. Now that the matter has reached the high court, the DM has been directed to take a decision on the matter according to his discretion, hence the action against Raja Uday Pratap Singh.
He is routinely put under house arrest every Moharram. This time around forces from several police stations have been deployed around his mahal to maintain peace.
The Muharram procession is scheduled to be taken out on July 17.