New Delhi: Twenty-nine days after a “purification” ritual was performed on a stage in Uttarakhand’s Haldwani where Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had addressed a public meeting, the police on Tuesday (September 8) registered a case invoking provisions of the SC/ST Act.An FIR was registered after Congress MPs and other leaders sat in Delhi’s Parliament Street police station for over three hours demanding that a case be lodged.The delay in lodging the case against those who had conducted the “purification” ritual comes even as the Haldwani police registered a case against Lok Sabha leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi last month, when he said at a press conference that the ritual was a crime.While Kharge’s rally in Haldwani was on August 8, the “purification” ritual was held on August 10. Kharge himself raised the matter in the Rajya Sabha on August 13 when he said that he was made to feel the “sting of untouchability”. Union minister and house leader J.P. Nadda had said in the House that action would be taken.Police on Tuesday said a case has been registered under sections 196 (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and 299 (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.Additionally, section 3(1)(r) – which deals with intentional insults to or intimidation of, with intent to humiliate, a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe in any place within public view – of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has also been invoked in the FIR.“We received various petitions and applications from organisations and political parties … across the state concerning the alleged events at Ramlila Maidan on the 10th – specifically the cleaning, rituals and the alleged purification ceremony … We were conducting a legal review of all these applications,” said Nainital senior superintendent of police Manjunath T.C.“During this legal scrutiny, we learned that a social activist and lawyer from Haldwani, Anju, had been the first to lodge a formal written complaint at the Haldwani Kotwali police station; she had also provided relevant videos to the station house officer and other officials. Consequently, based on her formal complaint, we have today registered an FIR against unknown persons under sections 196 and 299 [of the BNS] and section 3(1)(r) of the SC/ST Act.”The case was registered in Haldwani after high drama in Delhi, where Congress MPs and other leaders reached the Parliament Street police station and refused to leave until an FIR was lodged.In a statement, Congress MP Sasikanth Senthil said that 37 MPs were sitting inside the police station but the police were refusing to lodge an FIR.“We are 37 members of parliament sitting inside Parliament Street police station right now. We have given a written complaint. The police are refusing to register an FIR. A stage in Haldwani was “purified” after Kharge ji spoke on it. That is untouchability. It is a crime under the law. An FIR against Rahul Gandhi took one day. Against the men who did this, one month and nothing. We are not leaving until the FIR is registered,” he wrote on X.Apart from Senthil, Congress MPs Kodikkunnil Suresh, Mallu Ravi and Varsha Gaikwad, as well as the party’s SC, OBC, minority and Adivasi departments coordinator K. Raju and SC department head Rajendra Pal Gautam were present at the police station for close to four hours.After the case was registered, Gaikwad in a statement said that the MPs were granted entry after prolonged protest and pressure and that the FIR was registered after three hours.“If this is how they treat the country’s MPs at a police station, then when atrocities are committed against any common Dalit, Adivasi, or marginalized person, how must the police treat them? When strict laws exist in the country to prevent atrocities against SC/ST communities, why did it take a whole month to register an FIR? This is not just about one FIR. This raises serious questions about the rule of law and the state of law and order in the country,” she said.Two Union ministers, Ramdas Athavale and Chirag Paswan, who are allies of the BJP at the national level had condemned the ‘purification’ ritual, calling it wrong. However, Uttarakhand BJP president Mahendra Bhatt had earlier defended the ritual and said that the place was “polluted”.