Ganga Iftar case: complainant inconsistent in claims, extortion charge added

The arrest of 14 Muslim men in Varanasi, following a complaint by a Hindutva activist alleging that they had consumed non-vegetarian food on the river Ganga and dumped its waste during an Iftar gathering, has come under scrutiny after the complainant appeared inconsistent in his statements to Alt News.

The subsequent invocation of a grave extortion charge, apparently without corroborative ground, further escalated the matter to one carrying potential incarceration of up to ten years.

The controversy began on March 15 when videos surfaced on social media showing a group of men breaking their Ramzan fast aboard a boat on the Ganga, allegedly sharing chicken biryani, following which a complaint was lodged the next day by Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha’s Varanasi president Rajat Jaiswal, accusing them of hurting religious sentiments and polluting the river.

Acting upon the complaint, police arrested 14 men. They booked them under multiple provisions, including those relating to defiling a place of worship, promoting enmity, public nuisance, and fouling water, before later adding the far more serious charge of extortion alongside allegations under the Information Technology Act.

However, when contacted by Alt News, Jaiswal’s assertions appeared to shift, as he initially insisted that eating non-vegetarian food on the Ganga constituted a grave affront to faith and claimed that “full evidence” had been furnished, yet faltered when asked how he knew that waste had been dumped into the river.

He first stated that the accused had washed their hands after eating and thereby disposed of waste, then claimed he had personally witnessed the act, before retracting and suggesting that unspecified witnesses had informed the administration, ultimately refusing to clarify whether he had seen any such conduct in person or in video footage.

The shifting nature of his account assumed significance because, in earlier video remarks, he had alleged that bones were being thrown into the Ganga, an assertion that later narrowed to hand-washing and then broadened again to vague claims of “waste disposal”, none of which, according to Alt News, was supported by the viral videos reviewed.

This allegation, nevertheless, formed the core of the initial FIR, thereby raising questions about the evidentiary basis for the arrests.

Further complexity arose when additional charges, including extortion under threat of grievous harm, were introduced, dramatically increasing the potential punishment. A Varanasi court denied bail on March 23 and remanded the accused to judicial custody, while the extortion narrative appeared tenuous when juxtaposed with the boat owner’s family’s account to The Indian Express that a regular customer hired the boat, completed a short trip, returned the keys, and left without coercion.

The accused remains in custody as inconsistencies in the complainant’s version and the absence of visible evidence continue to cast doubt over the prosecution.