No hate speech at Delhi meet, say police, slam petitioners for SC PIL

NEW DELHI: With the hate speech litigation poised on communal lines, the Delhi Police on Wednesday informed the Supreme Court that speakers at Delhi Dharm Sansad on December 19 made no hate speech against Muslim community and questioned the petitioners for moving the SC without first approaching police.

South East Delhi Deputy Commissioner of Police Esha Pandey in an affidavit filed before the SC said FIRs have already been registered by SQR Illyas and Faisal Ahmed alleging hate speech at the even organised by Hindu Yuva

vahini

at Banarasidas Chandiwala Auditorium, near Govindpuri metro station on December 19.

"After a deep inquiry and evaluation of the contents of the video, the police did not find any substance in the videos as per the allegations levelled by the complainants. In the video clip of the Delhi incident, there is no utterance against any particular section/community. Hence, after inquiry and after evaluation of the alleged video clip, it was concluded that the alleged speech did not disclose any hate words against a particular community as alleged or otherwise," the Delhi police said and informed that all complaints are now closed.

"There is no use of such words which mean or could be interpreted as 'open calls for genocide of Muslim in order to achieve ethnic cleansing or an open call for murder of an entire community' in the speech (as was alleged by petitioners

Qurban Ali

and former HC judge

Anjana Prakash

)," the police said and wondered why the petitioners did not lodge a complaint with the police if they were aggrieved by the alleged hate speeches instead of approaching the over burdened SC with a PIL.

But, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for petitioners Ali and Prakash, on Wednesday told a bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and A S OKa that similar hate speeches were made at a 'Sant Sammelan' held at Allahabad on January 29 despite the SC entertaining the petition on January 12 and permitting the petitioners to appraise the authorities about such incident.

Sibal said the authorities were apprised about the possibility of hate speech on January 28 but no action was taken to stop delivery of hate speeches against Muslims. Petitioners sought to add the chief secretary and DGP of UP as parties to their petition.

But, there has been a determined reaction to the hate speech PIL of Ali and Prakash. Hindu Front for Justice (HFJ) through advocate Vishnu Jain and another Hindu outfit through Barun K Sinha have filed applications seeking to intervene in the proceedings and pointing out hate speeches made by Muslim clerics and politicians against Hindu community. SC posted all the matters for a composite hearing on April 22. The bench also asked Uttarakhand police to file a status report on probe into alleged hate speech delivered at Haridwar Dharm Sansad in December 17.

"It is the duty of the state to ensure that the separatist activities based on fundamantalist ethinic group should not be allowed to engage in hate speech full of venom and hatred towards Hindus are stopped with iron hand. Otherwise, reaction to the same is bound to happen," HFJ said and named Zakir Naik, Akbaruddin Owaisi, Waris Pathan, Amanatullah Khan and others for constantly inciting Muslims against Hindus through venomous speeches. It gave a list of more than 100 instances of hate speech against Hindus.