Swamy quizzed over inflammatory article

The Delhi police questioned Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy on Monday for allegedly writing an inflammatory article in a Mumbai-based newspaper last year.

He was accused of spreading enmity among different communities. He came with his lawyers at the Delhi police's crime branch office at Chanakyapuri in central Delhi at 11 am, said a senior police officer. He was questioned for two hours.

“He was questioned in a case registered in October last year, regarding the article he wrote in a newspaper. We had questioned two more persons related to the case,” said deputy commissioner of police (crime) Ashok Chand.

“I was asked about the meaning of certain words. I told them that my original article was about 4,000 words and the published one was about 1,100 words. I pointed out the sentences that were deleted,” said the Harvard-educated Swamy.

He said he wrote the article and emailed it to the newspaper when he was in the US.
On whether his 4,000-word-long article lost its significance after editing, he said, “The editor of the paper have the right to edit.”

Swamy alleged that the case was registered at the behest of home minister P Chidambaram. “The registration of the case was politically motivated and it was done to ensure that I am jailed,” he alleged.

The crime branch registered an FIR in October, three months after the publication of the controversial article, which was considered offensive to Muslims.

He was charged under Section 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence and language) of the Indian Penal Code.

The case was filed after a complaint by senior lawyer R K Anand in August. Even the National Commission for Minorities had decided to file a case against him for writing the article.

He was granted anticipatory bail till January 30 by the Delhi High Court on January 13.