The Karnataka Police on Thursday registered a first information report against Bharatiya Janata Party MP Tejasvi Surya for allegedly falsely claiming that a farmer died by suicide after his land was taken over by the Waqf Board, reported ANI.
In a now-deleted post on X, Surya had claimed that the farmer, Rudrappa Channappa Balikai, died by suicide after his land was “taken over by Waqf”. He had also blamed Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and minister BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan for causing distress among the farmers of Karnataka.
The Haveri superintendent of police later clarified that Balikai died by suicide in January 2022 due to loan burdens and crop loss.
“His father had given a statement to the police probing that case that Rudrappa had taken loans of ₹7 Lakh and suffered extensive crop damage due to excessive rains, pushing him to take the extreme step,” said the police official, according to The Hindu.
Along with Surya, editors of two Kannada portals – Kannada Duniya and Kannada News – that had published claims were also booked.
The three have been booked under Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita section 353(2), which deals with the offence of publishing or circulating false information.
After the police’s clarification about Balikai’s death, Surya said that he would no longer rely on the source that reported the information.
“Thanks for the information,” the BJP MP said in a social media post. “The tweet stands deleted. I will henceforth not rely on the news agency that reported it. Given the rampant amount of Waqf conversion notices to 1000s of farmers across the state, one is easily led to believe such outcomes (sic).”
However, he later claimed that senior Karnataka ministers were pressuring the police to falsify records about a farmer’s suicide, reported PTI.
“FIRs are being registered against me and even media organisations for fair and free reporting on the Waqf matter,” Surya told the news agency.
This comes days after Jagadambika Pal, the chairperson of the joint parliamentary committee reviewing the Waqf Amendment Bill, visited Karnataka to meet farmers at the invitation of Surya.
The BJP’s Karnataka unit has alleged that the state government designated land belonging to farmers in several taluks as Waqf land.
On October 28, Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda, Industries and Vijayapura district in-charge minister MB Patil, and Housing and Waqf Minister Zameer Ahmed Khan accused the BJP of making false claims regarding the land claimed by the Waqf Board.
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