Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Nitesh Rane has been booked for allegedly propagating hate speech targeting a minority community at a programme organised to celebrate the Hindu festival of Ganesh Chaturthi, reported PTI on Monday.
Rane and the programme’s organiser, Sankalp Gharat, were booked on a complaint by a police official. The news agency did not clarify which community Rane had targeted.
The official said that Gharat had organised the seven-day event without requisite permissions at Ulwe in Navi Mumbai. Rane, who is an MLA from Sindhudurg district’s Kankavli, was the chief guest.
According to Mint, Rane asked realty brokers in the region “not to deal with non-Hindus” and to check the Aadhaar cards of persons before making any property deals. He also reportedly asked them to ignore the principle of “sarva dharma samabhava”, or equal respect for all religions.
The remarks sparked protests by the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen. Party spokesperson Imtiaz Jaleel said he plans to visit Mumbai on September 23 and gift copies of the Constitution to the leaders of Maharashtra’s Mahayuti government, which includes the BJP.
The first information report against Rane was registered under sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita pertaining to the utterance of words with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings, criminal intimidation and “intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace”.
This is not the first time Rane has been booked for alleged hate speech. He was booked in a similar case in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district on September 2.
While speaking at gatherings of the Sakal Hindu Samaj Andolan, an umbrella group of Hindutva organisations, Rane had allegedly warned Muslims against making comments about Hindu religious leader Ramgiri Maharaj.
Ramgiri was accused of making derogatory remarks about Islam and Prophet Muhammad at an event in Nashik district in August.
In March, Rane had used the words “Rohingyas” and “Bangladeshis”, among other derogatory expressions, to describe the Muslim community during an event organised by the Sakal Hindu Samaj in Mumbai’s Ghatkopar locality.
The Mumbai Police had told the Bombay High Court that using such terms was not derogatory towards Muslims living in India.
The Rohingya are a Muslim-majority ethnic group from Myanmar. They are the victims of a state-sponsored ethnic-cleansing campaign in their home country. Several thousands of them have fled to India and Bangladesh to escape the violence.
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