The first arrest in the dharma Sansad case has been made.

On Thursday, January 14, the Uttarakhand police made the first arrest in the Dharma Sansad hate speech case, apprehending Waseem Rizvi, now known as Jitendra Narayan Tyagi, from Roorkee in Haridwar district, and issuing summonses to two other important defendants, Yati Narsimhananda and Sadhvi Annapurna. The three are listed in the FIRs filed in connection with the case, along with others.

Uttarakhand DGP Ashok Kumar told PTI that although Rizvi has been arrested, notices for attendance under Section 41 A of the CrPC have been served to Yati Narasimhanand and Sadhvi Annapurna. Sadhvi Annapurna was one of the speakers at the Dharma Sansad in Haridwar, where highly provocative speeches were allegedly made against Muslims. Yati Narasimhanand is a controversial priest from the Dasna Temple in Ghaziabad who organised the event.

According to Haridwar Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Yogendra Rawat, Waseem Rizvi was apprehended at the Narsan border in Roorkee. Rizvi, who converted to Hinduism and changed his identity to Jitendra Narayan Tyagi, is one of more than ten people accused in the FIRs filed in connection with the case. He formerly served as the chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Shia Waqf Board. This is the case's first arrest.

When asked if more arrests will be made, the SSP stated it would depend on the outcome of the investigation. The Uttarakhand government has been under intense pressure from a variety of sources to take action against those who gave speeches at the gathering. Even the state administration was chastised by the Supreme Court on Wednesday, January 12, for failing to prosecute the perpetrators despite the fact that so many days had gone since the occurrence. 

Some attendees at the Dharma Sansad, which took place in Haridwar from December 17 to 19, have been accused of making excessively offensive comments.

In the meantime, the petitioners in the Supreme Court's hate speech case have written to the Aligarh district magistrate, urging him to take precautionary measures to guarantee that no comments similar to those made at the Haridwar 'dharam sansad' are allowed at a planned gathering in Aligarh. 

The petitioners stated in their letter that they are writing to the Aligarh district magistrate pursuant to the liberty granted by the Supreme Court order, and that another 'dharam sansad' is being held in Aligarh on January 22-23, at which the speakers who spoke at the aforementioned events on December 17-19 are likely to speak again.

The petitioners' letter stated that "the responsibility to take preventive measures to prevent any possible incident of mob violence falls on the district administration, and since you are in charge of the administration in Aligarh, the responsibility to take preventive action to ensure no speeches of this nature are made falls on your shoulders."