Cops gave security to bizman who received similar threats

Shiv Sunny and Sohail Khan

UDAIPUR: Around the time Udaipur tailor Kanhaiya Lal was receiving threats for a Facebook post in support of suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma, another businessman from the city was facing similar threats for a post on Islamic literature. The difference: While Lal was brutally murdered by two Muslim men for his post earlier this week, this businessman – whose family requested anonymity for his personal safety – received police protection and continued to hide at an undisclosed location.

The development was confirmed by the family of the businessman, the local police, and members of a local organisation that filed a FIR against him. “The family haven’t filed any official complaint with us, but we have been providing them a security cover from the first day we found them vulnerable,” said Ravindra Charan, station house officer of Savina police station.

On June 8, the man posted on

Facebook some comments against Islamic literature. Ashfaq Khan, vice president of Muslim organisation Anjuman Talimul Islam’s Udaipur chapter, said his organisation decided to pursue legal action. The next day, the organisation’s president Mujeeb Siddiqui filed an FIR, a copy of which is with HT. Khan said around this time, three such FIRS was filed – one against this businessman on June 9, one against Lal on June 11, and a third at Pratap Nagar police station.

Police said the man was picked up and released the same day, on June 9. Lal was also arrested on June 11, the day the FIR against him was filed, and released on bail the next day after a compromise was reached. But once this man was released, he started receiving threats and told his relatives that he was being followed. This was in the same week that Lal told his wife Yashoda that he was being accosted by unidentified men, and approached the police on June 15.

This businessman’s brother said they learnt about unknown people repeatedly enquiring about him and trying to identify him. “The family was so terrified that the man went into hiding for several days even before Lal was killed… we raised our security concerns with the police who have deployed policemen at our home,” the man’s brother told HT, adding that police protection helped shore up their confidence until Lal’s gruesome killing on Tuesday.

“We are still afraid and staying indoors on advice of the police who are securing us,” he said. Manoj Kumar Chaudhary, superintendent of Udaipur Police, said that no evidence of anyone following the businessman to his workplace surfaced so far. “We cannot comment much on the investigation at this stage,” the SP added.

THE BUSINESSMAN RECEIVED THREATS FOR A SOCIAL MEDIA POST ON ISLAMIC LITERATURE