After the local administration foiled the Akhil Bhartiya Hindu Mahasabha’s plans to install a statue of Nathuram Godse, the saffron outfit on Friday decided to set up a library here as a memorial to the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi.

The Mahasabha had decided to unveil a bust of Godse on its office premises after the police, acting on Chief Judicial Magistrate’s order, cordoned off the area where it had earlier planned to install the statue.

However, police personnel in large numbers at the Mahasabha office foiled the saffron activists plan to unveil the bust of Godse on the 67th death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

“We faced a curfew-like situation as there were police guards everywhere inside the party office. We could not move out and could not get the statue installed. We will now move the Allahabad High Court once we get the magistrate order not allowing us to install the statue and sealing off the chosen area,” said Ashok Sharma, a member of the central working body of the Hindu Mahasabha.

The Mahasabha’s national general secretary, Munna Kumar Sharma, told The Indian Express that though the local administration foiled the group’s efforts to put up a Godse statue, “no one will stop us from opening a library on Godse at the place where books highlighting his life will be kept so that people may know him as a person.”

The local administration had imposed prohibitory orders on Thursday under the CrPC Section 144 in the area under Brahmpuri police station.

Meanwhile, volunteers of the Priyanka-Rahul Brigade led by Uttarakhand minister Dhirendra Pratap Singh staged a “satyagrah” at Commissionery Park here for two hours in the morning and “resolved” not to let anyone install the statue of Godse.

“His statue will be a disrespect to the Father of Nation and we will not let this happen at any cost. We have also submitted a memorandum addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in which we have urged him to intervene in the issue,” Singh said.

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