Six people booked over cooking non-vegetarian food and smoking hookah during Ganga boat ride

Prayagraj: Police have registered a case after a video clip surfaced on the internet purportedly showing six people cooking a non-vegetarian meal and smoking a hookah on a boat on the Ganga near the holy Sangam.

Police said they have identified two of the six men, but they are absconding.

In the FIR lodged on Wednesday, the six people are accused of hurting religious sentiments and defiling a place of worship, police said.

The 30-second video purportedly caught the scene on a moving boat close to Prayagraj’s Daraganj. The men appeared to be cooking chicken on skewers.

#Watch: Six people cooking a non-vegetarian meal and smoking a hookah on a boat on the #Ganga near the holy Sangam in #Prayagraj pic.twitter.com/aw7DpoaQ5l

— NewsDrum (@thenewsdrum) September 1, 2022

Circle Officer Aastha Jaiswal said Daraganj is a pilgrimage area and people are expected not to do anything that could hurt the sentiments of the devotees.

"Cooking meat on a boat on the Ganga river can hurt the religious sentiments of the people who come here," the CO said.

The FIR was registered against two named and four unknown people on the complaint of Bakshi outpost in-charge Diwakar Singh after the video surfaced on Tuesday.

Two of the men seen in the video have been identified as Ajaf and Hassan, against whom an FIR was registered under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race) and 295 (defiling place of worship) of the IPC.

The two are residents of Bakshi Khurd in Daraganj. They are absconding, police said, adding efforts are being made to identify the remaining four.