Bulandshahr (Uttar Pradesh), Nov 8 (IANS): Samajwadi Party leader and former block head Rakesh Sharma and some other unidentified persons have been booked under section 295-A of the IPC (deliberate and malicious act) for garlanding the statue of Lord Parshuram on Diwali, a day before its inauguration.

Rishikant Sharma, Station House Officer (SHO) of Shikarpur police station, said, "The statue was built by the government and is to be formally inaugurated by a minister later this month. One cannot just go and garland it before its formal inauguration. Their act has the potential to disturb law and order in the area."

He said Sharma and the others were booked on the complaint of a police constable posted in Shikarpur.

As news of the FIR spread, hundreds of members of the Brahmin community, farmers and social activists gathered at Shikarpur on Sunday to protest against Anil Sharma, state minister for forest, environment and climate change, who is supposed to inaugurate the statue later this month.

"Even if the government has installed the statue, Parshuram belongs to all. All they did was to clean up the statue on Diwali day," claimed farmer leader Poonam Pandit, who joined the protest.

She said everyone has equal rights to worship a statue. "Just because a UP minister wants to inaugurate the statue, should a common man be debarred from worshiping the same? It was Diwali and all those who have been booked only wanted to clean the statue, which had been waiting for the inauguration for a long time," she added.