A court in West Bengal’s Howrah on Monday, 19 October, granted bail to Balwinder Singh, the Sikh man whose arrest during BJP’s ‘Nabanna Chalo’ rally earlier in October in Kolkata sparked a row, news agency PTI reported. Singh had been in the custody of the Howrah police since his arrest on 8 October.
He was reportedly granted conditional bail by a court in Howrah.
The arrest had started a social media war, with BJP leaders among those accusing West Bengal police of hurting religious sentiments and alleging that the Howrah district police removed his turban.
However, the West Bengal Home Department had said that policing was done as per law, adding that “Sikh brothers and sisters live here in West Bengal in perfect peace and harmony.”
“One political party is giving communal colour to the subject in narrow partisan interest in a manner that Bengal does not believe in,” the Home Department had added, without taking any names.
Singh is reportedly the personal security guard of BJP leader Priyanshu Pandey and was held by the police for carrying a loaded pistol during the march to Nabanna, the state secretariat.
The West Bengal Police, too, had reacted to the controversy, responding with the video of the arrest, saying that the person was carrying firearms and that the turban had fallen off during a scuffle with one of the officers.
“It is never our intention to hurt the sentiments of any community,” the police said, adding that the man was asked to put his turban back before the arrest as well, attaching a photo of the same.
(With inputs from PTI.)
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