Three persons have been arrested in connection with the incident.

AGRA: A group of people pelted stones on police in a minority-dominated locality of Aligarh on Thursday night after they were advised not to offer group namaz in a mosque amid the lockdown . Three persons were arrested by the police following the incident.

According to police, a group of 25 people were found offering namaz at Takia mosque under jurisdiction of Banna Devi police station on Thursday night. When police personnel advised them to offer namaz at their homes instead of the mosque for maintaining social distance due to Covid-19 outbreak, they hurled stones at the police party.

Circle officer, Pankaj Srivastava , told TOI that three persons, including maulvi Azruddin along with a woman Bobi, were arrested and remanded to judicial custody. All of them have been booked under section 269 (Negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 270 (Malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life),148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 332 (Voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty) and other sections of of IPC along with Section 56 of Disaster Management Act.

He said, police personnel were on patrolling to ensure strict lockdown in the city and they were unnecessary targeted by the people offering namaz. He said that the government had already announced that social distancing should be maintained at every place and people have been advised not to visit temples or mosques during the lockdown. “Instead of following orders, they targeted the police personnel,” he said.

Earlier on Wednesday, a sub-inspector and a constable of Uttar Pradesh Police were seriously injured after being attacked by a group of villagers in Muzaffarnagar , when they were stopped from violating the ongoing lockdown. Three villagers and a former village head were arrested by the police.

