New Delhi: Uttarakhand police have filed a hate speech case against Yati Narasimhanand – the organiser of a ‘dharam sansad’, or ‘parliament of religions’, in Haridwar last month that triggered outrage after some Hindu religious leaders urged people to take up arms against Muslims and called for genocide.
Narasimhanand – who has previously also been accused of inciting violence with incendiary speeches – was one of those who spoke at the event. He is the fifth person to be named in a FIR (first information report) that was filed four days later and only after public calls for action.
The others named in the FIR are Sagar Sindhu Maharaj, a woman identified as ‘Sadhvi Annapurna’ and a man named Dharam Das, as well as a Wasim Rizvi aka Jitendra Tyagi. All five have been charged with promoting enmity between religious groups and defiling a place of worship.
Clips from the event – held from December 17 to 20 – were circulated on social media and drew sharp criticism from former military chiefs, activists and even tennis legend Martina Navratilova.
According to a police complaint filed by Trinamool Congress leader and RTI activist Saket Gokhale, others at the gathering were the Hindu Raksha Sena’s Prabodhanand Giri, BJP women’s wing leader Udita Tyagi, and BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay, who is out on bail in a hate speech case.
However, the organisers and speakers at the event have insisted they did nothing wrong.
Vile speeches at the ‘religious’ conclave in Haridwar – similar to another in Delhi – and the atmosphere of hatred spewed were red-flagged by 76 of the country’s top lawyers, who wrote to Chief Justice NV Ramana and asked the Supreme Court to take suo moto cognisance of the events.
“… the events and the speeches delivered during the same are not mere hate speeches but amount to an open call for murder of an entire community … (pose a) grave threat not just to the unity and integrity of our country but also endanger the lives of millions of Muslim citizens,” they said.
Their letter was followed by one from five former Chiefs of Staff of the armed forces, who wrote to President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to warn them that such calls for violence could lead to internal disharmony and also embolden external aggressors.
Apart from the events at Delhi and Haridwar, other Hindu religious leaders made similarly disturbing speeches at another ‘dharam sansad’ in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur last month, at which a Kalicharan Maharaj declared that the aim of Islam is to capture the nation through politics.
A police case has been filed against him.
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