Uttar Pradesh police have arrested rights defender and former IPS officer S.R. Darapuri and six other activists on rioting charges in connection with a pro-Dalit protest, prompting a group of social organisations to write to the President seeking their release.

The police said Darapuri, 82, and the others were picked up in Gorakhpur on October 11 in connection with a protest at the divisional commissioner’s office that allegedly turned violent. Officers said they were probing possible foreign funding for the protesters.

A researcher from France accompanying the activists too was arrested, on charges of Foreigners Act violations.

Darapuri, national president of the All India People’s Front (AIPF), had earlier been arrested during the anti-CAA protests on charges of disturbing law and order and put in jail for a month.

“The AIPF, Mazdoor Kisan Manch and several tribal organisations of the state have written a joint letter to President Droupadi Murmu to release Darapuri and his friends and punish those police officers who have given wrong feedback that these people were involved in illegal and criminal activities,” Ajay Rai, an AIPF member, told reporters in Sonbhadra on Sunday.

Ganga Chero, a tribal leader from Sonbhadra, said: “Darapuri is a Dalit and a former inspector-general from the Uttar Pradesh cadre. He is a highly respected person. He fights for the poor and downtrodden.”

Chero added: “He was in Gorakhpur to attend a dharna on the commissioner’s compound. The protesters were demanding the allotment of government land to landless Dalits. This is not a crime. But he was booked for damaging public property and disturbing law and order.”

The police said they had booked 28 people and arrested 7 of them on the basis of confirmed information that, funded by some foreign agency, they had set about disturbing law and order in the city.

Gorakhpur is the hometown of chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who is mahant of the Gorakhnath Temple.

Krishna Kumar Bishnoi, superintendent of police, Gorakhpur city, said: “Some people gathered at the commissioner’s office on Tuesday and Wednesday and held a dharna without permission. They connected a loudspeaker with the electric pole and attacked employees when asked to remove the loudspeaker.