Summary:
Delhi Police on Tuesday told the Delhi high court that no “actionable evidence” has been found against several political leaders -- including the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Kapil Mishra, Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma, and the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Amanatullah Khan -- against whom public interest litigations were filed for allegedly making hate speeches and instigating people during the anti-CAA protests.
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New Delhi: Delhi Police on Tuesday told the Delhi high court that no “actionable evidence” has been found against several political leaders -- including the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Kapil Mishra, Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma, and the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Amanatullah Khan -- against whom public interest litigations were filed for allegedly making hate speeches and instigating people during the anti-CAA protests.
In an affidavit filed before a bench of chief justice DN Patel and justice Prateek Jalan, the police said that “the prima facie investigation has revealed that this is not the case of any sporadic or spontaneous violence but appears to be a part of a well-thought-out conspiracy to destabilise harmony in society”, and that the petitions should be dismissed.
It stated that investigation in the case is still on, and if anything incriminating is found, FIRs will be registered.
The reply comes in a bunch of pleas that sought registration of FIRs against several political leaders for allegedly making speeches during the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act agitation that, the petition said, eventually led to communal riots in north-east Delhi in February.
On February 26, the Human Rights Law Network filed a plea on behalf of activist Harsh Mander seeking FIRs against Bharatiya Janata Party leaders such as Kapil Mishra and Anurag Thakur to be booked for making that speeches that purportedly triggered communal violence in northeast Delhi.
The following day, an organisation named Lawyers Voice filed an intervention in the plea, making similar allegations against Congress`s Sonia and Rahul Gandhi as well as leaders of AAP.
“It is submitted that during the investigations conducted so far in all the aforesaid matters related to north-east Delhi riots, no actionable evidence has yet surfaced indicating any role being played by the persons named in the writ petitions in instigating and/or participating in the riots,” the police affidavit said.
It added that the “investigation conducted so far is pointing towards a wider and a larger conspiracy and concerted attempts of creating disruption of law and order situation in the city through violent means by disrupting communal harmony in the state and to perpetrate chaos in the society”.
On Monday, the court gave two days to the Delhi Police to file their replies to the pleas seeking various directions to speed up action in the case of violence at Jamia Milia Islamia that had broken out during the anti-CAA protests after some of the petitioners said they had not received the copy of the reply.
Reacting to the affidavit, BJP leader Kapil Mishra said: “Today it is clear that the entire propaganda campaign against me was fake.
People who organised riots in Delhi are filling fake complaints against me and some ‘urban Naxals’ tried to promote that.