Court to Police: Register case against Akbaruddin Owaisi for hate speech

Hyderabad: XIV Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court at Hyderabad directed Saidabad police to register a case against Chandrayangutta MLA and AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi. The police were directed to register a case under sections 153, 153A, 153B and 506 of the Indian Penal Code. The court issued orders after a city-based advocate sought action against the MLA, for the latter’s alleged provocative speech on July 2019 in Karimnagar. Akbaruddin allegedly gave a hate speech and warned of a “15-minute threat”.

Advocate Kashimshetty Karuna Sagar stated that he came across an item in a news channel, which featured Akbaruddin making a provoking speech with hate content. Karuna Sagar reported, “Akbaruddin said that RSS could never even think of touching them. People only scare those who get scared easily and the world is scared of those who know how to scare the people off.”

Akbaruddin went on to reiterate his 2012 remark and said, “You know why they hate me? It is because they are yet to overcome the 15-minute comment.” This promotes not only communal disturbance but also enmity between Hindus and Muslims at large.

Giving a context, Karuna Sagar stated that during 2012, Akbaruddin had delivered a controversial and derogatory speech at Nirmal town. In the statement, the MLA said, “We (Muslims) are 25 crore, and they are 100 crore. Remove the police for just 15 minutes and see how numbers turn out after that.”

After the speech, a case was registered against Akbaruddin at Nirmal tow. While granting bail in the case, the court told that he should not insult other religions, incite religious sentiments of people, be prejudicial to communal harmony, promote enmity between religions to create disturbance in the society, and abet to wage war against the government.

Karuna Sagar, in his complaint, stated that Akbaruddin had violated the bail conditions in 2015. The MLA had addressed an election meeting at Kochadhaman village in Kishanganj district in Bihar. During the speech, he had used abusive language and passed provocative remarks. It resulted in the vandalism of two idols of Goddess Kali in nearby temples of Kochadhaman. Police registered a case in this regard.

The advocate also stated that Akbaruddin’s actions are nothing but deliberate and are prejudicial to communal harmony. He added that they are promoting enmity between religions, and the further actions of the accused shocked him.

Karuna Sagar also told the court that he had lodged a complaint with Saidabad police in July 2019, but police failed to initiate any action.