An FIR was registered against a woman BJP leader, Sangeeta Varshney, at the Gandhi Park police station for slapping a girl who was accompanying a youth from minority community in a tea shop, police said on Saturday.
The FIR was registered under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (insult intended to provoke breach of the peace) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against BJP’s Aligarh women cell leader on a complaint by the girl’s father, police said.
A video of a BJP leader, Sangeeta Varshney, allegedly slapping a woman had surfaced on social media, which later caused outrage among the community members in Aligarh.
The police had earlier registered a case under relevant sections of the Indian penal Code (IPC) pertaining to obscenity at a public place against the youth. He was arrested and released on bail, police officials said.
In the video, Varshney said, “Tere ko samajh mein nahi aataa kaun Hindu hai, kaun Musalmaan hai. Pyaar se samajhaa rahee hoon, samajh hee mein nahi aa raha. (Don’t you understand who is a Hindu and who is a Muslim. I am politely making this clear, but even then it seems that you are not getting it).”
Kalpana Gupta, a womens’ rights protection group activist, charged Varshney with indulging in moral policing and trying to humiliate the girl publicly despite her assertion that she was an adult and had the right to befriend any one of her choice.
Amid the outrage, the girl’s father submitted a complaint following which a case was registered against Varshney, police officials said.
(With agency inputs)