Muslim wedding procession attacked in Sonepat, 1 held

ROHTAK : The police have arrested a man for attacking a wedding procession of two Muslim grooms in Jat Joshi village of Sonepat district.

The police said they had got a complaint on Monday that accused Jaiveer Hooda had stopped the wedding procession from passing outside his house and then tried to attack the two grooms with an axe.

The people present at the spot managed to save the two grooms.

Chamanlal Alvi, whose is the lone Muslim family living in the village for generations, said his nephews Salim and Nawab wanted to marry as per village’s traditions. On Monday, the family performed ‘ghurchari’ of the two grooms and were taking them to ‘dada khede’ spot in the village where all grooms perform customary prayer before their wedding.

When the procession reached outside accused Hooda’s house, he came out with an axe and warned the family to go back. “He said how dare you Muslims perform ghurchari and take out procession in the village.

After hurling abuses, he ran towards the grooms to attack them with the axe, but villagers gathered at the spot stopped him. We had to call police, after which he went away threatening to kill us if he ever saw us near his house,” said Alvi. He said due to the incident, they could not perform the customary prayer. Alvi said this was not the first time accused Hooda had caused them trouble.

In January, Hooda had issued death threats to Alvi’s family on Whatsapp, asking them to either convert to lower-caste Hindus or go to Pakistan.

“He was arrested in January, but came out on bail. He started doing same things again. His elder brother threatened to kill us if we file complain against him again for attacking my nephews,” said Alvi.

The police booked Hooda under Sections 295A (malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings), 298 (uttering words with intent to wound religious feeling) , 341 (wrongful restraint) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC.

Investigation officer Vedpal Singh said he was arrested and produced in court that sent him to judicial custody till Friday.