Following the mob attack on a madrasa in Telangana’s Medak district on the eve of Bakrid, nine people including Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) district president Gaddam Srinivas and town president M Nayam Prasad were arrested on Sunday, June 16. Seven people were injured in the violence that erupted on Saturday night after a Hindu right-wing mob stopped a vehicle of the Minhaj Ul Uloom Madrasa that was transporting cattle to celebrate the festival and unleashed an attack on the madrasa. This led to clashes and stone pelting between Hindu and Muslim groups. Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) was invoked in the district, with the police increasing patrolling in the area.

Medak SP B Bala Swamy told TNM that nine people have been arrested and sent to judicial custody. “We have remanded nine people so far. Seven more accused, a few of them who were injured, will be arrested soon after they are discharged from the hospital,” he added.

After the attack on the madrasa, the mob also vandalised a hospital where people injured in the clashes were being treated. Karwan MLA Kausar Mohiuddin said that members of Hindu Vahini and the BJP surrounded and ransacked the hospital located near the Medak police station. Addressing the media, Dr Naveen said they were treating people admitted after the clashes on humanitarian grounds when the mob attacked them, in which one of the hospital staff members was injured and the doctor’s car vandalised.

Addressing the media, Telangana Inspector General of Police AV Ranganath stated that the police will not tolerate such behaviour. “The Hindu side took the law into their own hands instead of informing us. If there is any issue, they should inform the police,” he added.

Meanwhile, BJP MLA Raja Singh alleged that the Telangana police arrested him at the airport while he was heading to meet BJP workers who were injured in the Medak clash. “Medak police have one-sidedly supported the attackers. All BJP and Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) karyakartas have been arrested by the police while the attackers roam freely,” he said.

Later in the day, the MLA met the workers and claimed that the BJP workers were attacked with knives when they stopped “anti-social elements from transporting cows.”