Haridwar, Delhi hate speeches: 76 lawyers urge CJI take cognisance

Seventy-six lawyers have written to Chief Justice N V Ramana, requesting him to take suo motu cognisance of hate speeches allegedly made at separate events organised in Delhi and Haridwar.

The letter alleged that the speeches delivered during the events were not mere hate speeches but amounted to an open call for murder of an entire community.

"The said speeches thus, pose a grave threat not just to the unity and integrity of our country but also endanger the lives of millions of Muslim citizens," the letter said.

"It is also pointed out that the recent speeches are a part of a series of similar speeches that we have come across in the past... Thus, urgent judicial intervention is required to prevent such events that seem to have become the order of the day," it read.

The letter has been signed by senior advocates Salman Khurshid, Dushyant Dave, and Meenakshi Arora among others.

An FIR was lodged in Uttarakhand's Haridwar district against Jitendra Narayan Tyagi and others in connection with alleged hate speeches delivered at a 'Dharma Sansad' to incite violence against the minorities.

The second event was organised by the Hindu Yuva Vahini in Delhi.

Tyagi, who changed his name from Waseem Rizvi after converting to Hinduism earlier this month, and other speakers at last week's event have been accused of making extremely provocative speeches, and some video clips of the same are doing the rounds on social media.

The FIR was registered under IPC section 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language), and the matter is under investigation, the police said.

The case was registered on the basis of a complaint by a resident of the Jwalapur area in Haridwar.

At the event, several speakers allegedly made inflammatory and provocative speeches calling for the killing of people from the minority communities and for taking up arms and shooting a former prime minister.

The 'Dharma Sansad' was allegedly organised by Yati Narasimhanand Giri of Juna Akhada who is already under police scanner for making hate speeches and inciting violence against the minorities in the past.

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