The Delhi Police has registered 44 FIRs and arrested four persons, including two printing press owners, after posters including some seeking the ouster of Prime Minister Narendra Modi (‘Modi hatao, desh bachao’), were found pasted on walls and poles in several areas of the Capital, reported India Today.
At least 2,000 posters were removed and 2,000 more were seized after a van was intercepted.
Special Commissioner of Police (Law and Order of Northern Zone) Dependra Pathak told The Indian Express that police intercepted a van in
I P Estate when it was coming from the AAP headquarters on DDU Marg and arrested a man.
“The arrested man disclosed that he was asked by his employer to deliver the posters at AAP’s headquarters and that he had made a delivery a day earlier as well. We have arrested two other men and further investigations are on,” Pathak said.
There was no immediate response from the AAP. According to police, two printing press firms were given orders for 50,000 such posters each, and workers linked to the companies passed several of them from late Sunday night to Monday morning. The owners have been arrested for not publishing the names of their printing press on the posters.
The incident comes two years after Delhi Police arrested 30 people and lodged 25 FIRs over a similar incident of posters with remarks critical of Modi during the Covid vaccination drive.
According to police, 20 FIRs in the latest incident were registered in the Northwest district, six in North and five in West, apart from three each in Shahdara and Dwarka, two each in Central, Northeast, and East, and one in Southeast.
DCP (Northwest) Jitendra Meena confirmed the registration of 20 FIRs in the district and said they have not made any arrest so far. “Mostly, the FIRs were registered under the Prevention of Defacement of Public Property Act, and Press and Registration of Books Act,” an officer said.
Officers said three persons were arrested from the Central district and one from West. DCP (West) Ghanshyam Bansal said, “We have arrested one person, an owner of a printing press, and we are probing from where he obtained this order.”
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