Varanasi Ganga Boat Iftar Row | Allahabad High Court Grants Bail To 8 Accused
Sparsh Upadhyay
15 May 2026 2:08 PM IST
The Allahabad High Court today allowed the bail applications of 8 Muslim men accused of organizing an Iftar party, consuming non-vegetarian food on a boat in the river Ganga (in Varanasi) and throwing leftover waste into the river.
In separate orders issued on the same day, Justice Rajiv Lochan Shukla granted bail to 5 of the accused, while Justice Jitendra Kumar Sinha granted bail to 3. With this, 8 out of the 14 accused in the case have now been granted bail.
Those granted bail are: Mohammad Azad Ali, Mohammad Tahseem, Nihal Afridi, Mohammad Tauseef, Mohammad Anas, Mohammad Sameer, Mohammad Ahmed Raza, and Mohammad Faizan.
The accused had moved the High Court after a Sessions Court in Varanasi denied them the relief on April 1. Earlier, their bail pleas were rejected by the CJM Court also.
They were arrested on March 17 by the Varanasi Police acting on a complaint by Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha district president Rajat Jaiswal.
They were then booked under Sections 196(1)(b) [Promoting enmity], 270 [Public Nuisance], 279 [Fouling water of public spring or reservoir], 298 [Injuring or defiling place of worship], 299 [Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs], 308 [Extortion] and 223(b) BNS along with Section 24 [Prohibition on use of stream or well for disposal of polluting matter] of The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974.
The complaint alleged that the accused's act of sitting on a boat in the sacred river, eating chicken biryani during Iftar and throwing the remnants into the water was "extremely unfortunate and condemnable".
The informant further claimed that this act was deliberately carried out to promote a "jihadi mentality", which deeply hurt the sentiments of Sanatan followers and caused widespread public outrage.
