Army veterans move Supreme Court in Haridwar hate speech case

The plea cited the videos circulated on social media where blatant calls for genocide against minority communities have been made

Three Army veterans have moved the Supreme Court for the appointment of a special investigating team (SIT) to look into alleged hate speeches made at Haridwar and Delhi last month.

Major General S G Vombatkere, Colonel P K Nair and Major Priyadarshi Chowdhury, in their plea, cited the videos circulated on social media where blatant calls for genocide against minority communities have been made.

"One of the speeches specifically calls upon the police and the army to pick up arms against the minorities. In another such instance, an event was organized in Delhi on December 19, 2021. From a video of the event, a gentleman can be seen administering an oath to a group of people to 'die for and kill' to make India a 'Hindu rashtra'," the plea said.

Such seditious and divisive speeches violate not only the criminal law of the land but also strike at the core of Article 19 of the Constitution, they said, adding
these speeches stained the secular fabric of the nation and also have serious potential to impact public order adversely.

The plea said that if such incidents go unchecked, it will have a serious impact on the morale of the soldiers in the armed forces who come from diverse communities and religions.

"From their personal experience, it is felt that such hate speeches can even affect the battle efficiency of our Armed Forces and in turn compromise national security," the petition stated.

On January 12, the top court had issued notice to the central and Uttarakhand governments on a plea by retired Patna High Court judge Justice Anjana Prakash and journalist, Qurban Ali seeking an independent probe into the hate speech incident.

Yati Narasimhanand held

The Uttarakhand Police on Saturday picked up Yati Narasimhanand from his dharna site in Haridwar in connection with the case of Dharma Sansad where alleged hate speeches against Muslims were delivered, reports PTI from Dehradun.

Narasimhanand, the priest of Ghaziabad’s Dasna temple, was the organiser of the event in Haridwar in December 2021. He was picked up from where he was sitting on a dharna in protest against the arrest of another accused in the case, Jitendra Narayan Tyagi.

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