The Supreme Court on Monday granted bail to Jitendra Tyagi, one of the accused persons in the Haridwar hate speech case, NDTV reported. A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and BV Nagarathna barred him from addressing the electronic media as one of the bail conditions, according to Live Law.
The former Shia Waqf Board chief had converted to Hinduism in December and changed his name from Wasim Rizvi.
He had previously been granted bail for three months on medical grounds in May. In August, he had approached the court for an extension in bail, but was told to surrender before September 5.
Tyagi was arrested in January for calling upon Hindus to buy weapons to commit genocide against Muslims. He made the statement while speaking at a “dharam sansad”, or religious conclave, held in Haridwar between December 17 and December 19.
At the Haridwar event, Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, the head priest of Ghaziabad’s Dasna Devi temple, had called upon Hindus to pick up weapons, saying that mere “economic boycott” of Muslims will not work. He was arrested and was later granted bail in this case on February 7.
On September 2, a bench comprising Chief Justice UU Lalit and Justice S Ravindra Bhat had also refused to entertain a public interest litigation seeking Narsinghanand and Tyagi’s arrest.
The petition was filed by the Indian Muslim Shia Isna Ashari Jamaat. The organisation also demanded banning a book named Muhammad, written by Tyagi and had sought an order restraining him and Narsinghanand from making incendiary remarks against Islam.
Police action in hate speech case
Two first information reports have been filed in the case so far. The first FIR was filed on December 23 and had named just Tyagi.
On December 26, the Uttarakhand Police added the names of Annapurna, also known as Pooja Shakun Pandey, and priest Dharamdas Maharaj to the FIR. Annapurna is the general secretary of the Hindutva organisation Hindu Mahasabha. On January 1, the names of Saraswati and seer Sagar Sindhu Maharaj were added to the FIR.
On January 2, a second first information report was filed against 10 persons, including Giri and Maharaj. The other accused persons named in the FIR are event organisers Dharamdas, Parmananda, Annapurna, Anand Swaroop, Ashwini Upadhyay, Suresh Chahwan and Prabodhanand Giri and Tyagi.
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