Why no FIR for hate speeches: Delhi high court pulls up police
NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court has asked city police commissioner Amulya Patnaik and special police commissioner Praveer Ranjan to view videos of hate speeches made by politicians which could have contributed to the violence in the Capital that took a communal turn earlier this week, leaving at least 27 dead. It asked them to do this on Wednesday itself, take a “conscious” call on the action that will be taken against these people, and inform the court of the same on Thursday.
In oral observations, the court on Wednesday exhorted the police to “just file FIRs”. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Delhi Police, resisted, saying the atmosphere to file the cases was “not conducive”. The court’s final order did not include a direction for the FIRs.
We cannot let another 1984 scenario (antiSikh riots) happen in this country again. Not under the watch of this court.
DELHI HC BENCH ON VIOLENCE
The bench watched and also made SG Tushar Mehta watch videos of hate speeches made by four Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, Kapil Mishra, Abhay Verma, Parvesh Verma and Anurag Thakur .
This came after Mehta said he had not watched the videos.
After Mehta protested that there were other inflammatory and hate speeches made by others, the court , which became even more indignant that no action had been taken despite the presence of so many videos, ordered that Patnaik and Ranjan watch them.
“The city is burning and a constitutional court cannot be blind in its constitutional duty,” the bench of justices S Muralidhar and Tawlant Singh observed.
In a jampacked court, the bench told Mehta that it would not allow a repeat of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots to take place in the city, at least not under its watch. Two days of violent clashes between largely-Hindu supporters of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and predominantly Muslim opponents of the law have left at least 27 people dead and at least 300 injured in the Capital, where the police have drawn criticism for failing to act promptly to break it up.
A group of protestors, mainly women, has been staging a sit-in at the Capital’s Shaheen Bangh neighbourhood since the middle of December, demanding a repeal of the law that proposes to fast-track grant of citizenship to non-Muslim minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The alleged inflammatory speeches, some targeted at the protesters at Shaheen Bagh, and others, more generically, at anyone opposed to CAA, were seen to have fanned the tension, and caused the eruption of violence.
The Delhi high court was hearing a plea filed by petitioners Harsh Mander and Farah Naqvi seeking the registration of first information reports (FIRs) against BJP leaders Kapil Mishra, Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma for speeches that they claimed had incited the rioting in north-east Delhi. A video featuring Abhay Verma was also played in court on Wednesday.
“Just register FIRs. You showed alacrity in lodging FIRs for arson, why aren’t you showing the same for registering FIR for these speeches? The more and more you delay, the more problems are getting created,” the court said in a two-hour-long hearing.