Found no flag but UP police slap sedition on 4 for hoisting Pak flag: Report

Gorakhpur: Four people were booked in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh for sedition after a complaint alleged that they hoisted the Pakistan flag on the rooftop of their houses. The police did not find any Pakistan flags after searching their homes.

Businessmen Talim, Pappu, Ashiq and his brother Asif were booked after an FIR was filed under IPC Section 124-A. No one has been arrested yet. Families have handed over the flags in question to the police. Gorakhpur SSP Vipin Tada said that the police are verifying the writing in Urdu found on the flags.

Gorakhpur Additional Superintendent of Police Manoj Kumar Awasthi said that the families claimed to have put up religious flags and removed them after social media posts alleging them to be Pakistan flags popped up, reported The Indian Express.

SHO of Chauri Chaura police station Shyam Bahadur Singh told The Indian Express that a team was dispatched to Nirala Lane after they received reports of members of a Hindu group protesting outside houses and pelting them with stones. A four-wheeler of one of the families was damaged. The police deployed more people in the area and lodged the FIR, after which the protest dissolved.

The FIR was lodged by Kalyan Pandey, president of the Brahmin Jan Kalyan Samiti outfit. He said that people came to know about the matter when photographs showing Pakistan flags went viral on Wednesday. The police said that they were also looking for the person who posted the images on social media. They are also investigating if the houses on the images are matching.

Awasthi tweeted from the official handle of the Gorakhpur Police that "stringent action will be taken against all culprits for trying to disturb peace in the area."