On Wednesday, the Delhi Police filed a counter-affidavit before the Supreme Court, concluding that no hate speech was delivered at an event organised by the Hindu Yuva Vahini in the national capital on December 19, 2021.
It was responding to a petition filed by Qurban Ali and former Patna High Court judge Anjana Prakash, who contended that the police is not carrying out an independent, credible and impartial inquiry into the alleged hate speeches against the Muslim community.
In the counter-affidavit, DCP South East Delhi Esha Pandey pointed out that the petitioners don’t have a locus standi, nor did they approach the police.
However, she revealed that the police had investigated the video of the incident after receiving complaints from a number of persons including Welfare Party of India chief Dr.SQR Illyas.
The counter-affidavit mentioned, “There is no use of such words which mean or could be interpreted as ‘open calls for genocide of Muslims in order to achieve ethnic cleansing or an open call for murder of an entire community’ in the speech. After completion of the enquiry into the complaints, the inquiry officer submitted the enquiry report on March 24 closing all the complaints.”
The DCP also rubbished the petitioner’s charge that the police authorities are hand in glove with the perpetrators of communal hate, citing that the videotape cannot be tampered with. Maintaining that we must tolerate the views of others, she contended that the petitioners are trying to draw an absurd reference by isolating passages disregarding the main theme of the speech. The counter-affidavit added, “The expression of thought should be intrinsically dangerous to the public interest which is not the case in instant matter”.
