UP govt releases Singhal, Togadia after court order

Aug 27, 2013 - Amita Verma |

Age Correspondent

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Monday ordered the release of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders Ashok Singhal and Pravin Togadia and former BJP MP Ram Vilas Vedanti, who were arrested on Sunday while attempting to participate in the VHP’s banned “Chaurasi Kosi Parikrama Yatra” in Ayodhya.

Mr Singhal was released Monday evening and returned to New Delhi, but the other two — Pravin Togadia and Ram Vilas Vedanti — were on their way to Etah jail from Faizabad jail on transit remand when the court orders came.
They were released later on Monday along with former BJP MLA Lallu Singh on “personal bonds and assurance of good behaviour”.
Along with them, 958 other VHP activists were also released on Monday.
Uttar Pradesh home secretary Sarvesh Misra told reporters that Mr Singhal, who was arrested in Lucknow on Sunday, had expressed a desire to go to New Delhi and the district authorities had complied with his wishes.
He said earlier in the day that the court directive would be scrutinised regarding Mr Togadia and Mr Vedanti as both had been arrested from Ayodhya where prohibitory orders were in force.
The release was ordered by a division bench comprising Justices Imtiyaz Murtaza and D.K. Upadhayaya on a habeas corpus petition filed by Ranjana Aginihotri, a lawyer, terming the arrests “unlawful”. The court said if no other cases were pending against the three, they should be released immediately.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/252948" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-5149cd5d2e6798d9ba046ba91db13bff" value="form-5149cd5d2e6798d9ba046ba91db13bff" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="88398568" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>