Matter closed, say Delhi police : No hate words at 'Hindu Vahini' event, cops tell Supreme Court

The force says participants at the event had gathered ‘to save the ethics of their community’ and empower their own religion

R. Balaji   |   TT  |  New Delhi   |   15.04.22 :  Delhi police on Thursday told the Supreme Court the allegation that calls for genocide against Muslims had been sounded at a “Hindu Vahini” event in December had been found “incorrect and absurd” and the matter had been “closed”.

The force, which reports to the Union home ministry, said the video at the heart of the controversy contained no “hate words targeting any particular community” and that the participants at the event had gathered “to save the ethics of their community” and empower their own religion.

A video of the December 19 event that is in the public domain purportedly shows men and women in saffron robes pledging to turn India into a “Hindu Rashtra” and chorusing: “We shall fight; we shall die for and, if necessary, we shall kill.”

Behind them, a wall displays a banner of the Hindu Yuva Vahini, which shares its name with a vigilante group formed two decades ago by current Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

Around the same time as the Delhi event, several speakers at a December 17-19 Dharma Sansad in Haridwar had allegedly urged Hindus to pick up weapons against Muslims to establish a “Hindu Rashtra”.

Journalist Qurban Ali and former Allahabad High Court judge Anjana Prakash had moved a joint petition alleging the police in Delhi and Uttarakhand had failed to act following calls for genocide against Muslims at the two events.

On January 12, the bench of Chief Justice N.V. Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli had directed the police forces of Delhi and Uttarakhand to file their responses.

On Wednesday, the Uttarakhand government sought time to file a status report on the action taken over the Haridwar event.

Petitioners slammed

On Thursday, the Delhi police appeared to be obliquely accusing the petitioners of “intolerance”.

“Intolerance is as much dangerous to democracy as to the person himself. That the petitioner is trying to draw an incorrect and absurd inference by isolated passages disregarding the main theme and its message,” the sworn affidavit, filed by deputy commissioner of police (Southeast Delhi) Esha Pandey, said.

The police said they had received three complaints against the event, held at an auditorium in Govindpuri.

The first complaint, dated December 25 and lodged by Welfare Party of India president S.Q.R. Illyas, said Suresh Chavhanke, editor-in-chief of the TV channel Sudarshan News, had delivered a hate speech at the event that threatened national integrity.

Three others — Prasant Duvey, Prakhar Dixit and Avan Bansal — lodged a similar complaint on December 27 and later, a man named Faisal Ahmad lodged a third complaint via email, the police said.

All three complaints had been closed on March 24 after an in-depth inquiry, which included evaluating the video and other material evidence, the police said.

“…It was concluded that the alleged speech did not disclose any hate words against a particular community…. No specific words against a particular community or against any community were uttered by the gathering or any other person in that event,” the police said.

Scrutiny of the video revealed “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”.

The police said the speech was about empowering one’s religion to prepare itself to face the evils that could endanger its existence, which is not even remotely connected to any call for genocide against people from any particular religion.

“On the examination of the enquiry report, the SHO (station house officer), P.S. (police station) Okhla Industrial Area, concluded that since no cognisable offence was made out, no police action is required into the matter. Hence, no FIR was registered on the basis of the said complaint,” the affidavit said.

It denied the petitioners’ allegation that the police were hand in glove with perpetrators of communal hate as “baseless, imaginary”.

It said that since the case was “based on videotape evidence, there is hardly any scope on the part of investigation agencies to tamper with the evidence or hamper the investigation”.

“The petitioners have not approached this hon’ble court with clean hands and they are neither complainant nor aggrieved,” it said.