On December 27, Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) out-on-bail Saket Gokhale filed a complaint against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sadhvi Pragya Thakur for calling on Hindus to defend themselves. In his complaint addressed to Superintendent of Police GK Mithun Kumar of Shivamogga District, Gokhale claimed that Sadhvi Pragya, a Lok Sabha MP from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, made “extremely inflammatory remarks” designed to incite violence between two communities and disrupt law & order by advocating the use of weapons.
Copy of the complaint to SP Shivamogga as well as acknowledgment from Karnataka Police pic.twitter.com/826ZekUayX
— Saket Gokhale (@SaketGokhale) December 27, 2022
He also narrated the speech given by Sadhvi Pragya during the said event organised by Hindu Jagrana Vedike on December 25, 2022. Notably, his complaint was filed in response to a reply to out-on-bail alleged Fact-Check of Alt News Mohammed Zubair who had posted the video of the speech. In his tweet, Zubair claimed, “Open call for Killing of Muslims by BJP MP ‘Sadhvi’ Pragya Thakur during her speech in Karnataka. says, “Keep weapons at home. Keep them sharp. If veggies can be cut well, so can the enemy’s head”. He questioned higher officials of Karnataka Police about what action they were planning to take against her. Interestingly, Zubair did not mention that Sadhvi did not use the word ‘Muslims’ even once.
“No case registered since no complaint has been filed so far” was the ridiculous answer Shivamogga police had to offer.
— Anusha Ravi Sood (@anusharavi10) December 26, 2022
Not to forget, Zubair ran international propaganda against former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma by using a remark she made during a news channel debate and created an atmosphere forcing Sharma to go into hiding as ‘Sar Tan Se Juda’ fanatics went on a rampage demanding her severed head. In the aftermath of communal tension created by Zubair in the country, several Hindus including Kanhaiya Lal and others were brutally murdered by Islamists for supporting Sharma.
In a reply to Zubair, The South First’s journalist Anusha Ravi Sood said, “‘No case registered since no complaint has been filed so far’ was the ridiculous answer Shivamogga police had to offer.” Quoting her tweet, Gokhale had said he would be filing a complaint against Sadhvi.
Congress sympathiser Tehseen Poonawalla filed a similar complaint. In his complaint, he claimed that Sadhvi Pragya made an open call for the use of arms leading to mob violence against the minority community. He urged SP Kumar to file an FIR against the BJP leader under sections 153A, 153B, 268, 295A, 504 and 505 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
I have filed a complaint against #PragyaThakur ji (MP) for the hate speech that she delivered on 25.12.2022 at Shivamogga with the SP shri G.K Mithun Kumar.
— Tehseen Poonawalla Official 🇮🇳 (@tehseenp) December 26, 2022
Requesting Shivamogga police to kindly register an FIR u/s 153-A, 153-B,268,295-A,298,504,508 (IPC).@CMOkamoto @BSBommai pic.twitter.com/KxNXpYUHS5
Furthermore, he called Sadhvi Pragya a habitual offender and claimed she had made similar statements earlier. He mentioned the speech she gave in favour of Nathuram Godse as well in his complaint.
Both Gokhale and Poonawalla mentioned the ongoing case against the Lok Sabha MP in the Malegaon Blast case; however, it appears they both have forgotten that in 2017 while giving bail to Sadhvi, the Bombay High Court had stated that prima facie, there was no case against her. The matter is sub judice.
Sadhvi Pragya did not call for using arms against minorities
On Sunday, Sadhvi Pragya, the BJP MP from Bhopal, spoke at the Hindu Jagarana Vedike’s South Region annual convention, talking about the rights of Hindus to defend themselves against unilateral aggression. No sooner was the video out, ‘Liberal’ journalists proceeded to misrepresent what she said, spread fake news and claim that the MP was calling for a genocide of Hindus.
Had Sadhvi called for an out-and-out genocide of Muslims, it would be condemnable and prosecutable under the law of the land. No individual, much less an elected representative, has the right to call for the unilateral killing of a certain section of people and vilify an entire group of people based on their religion.
However, Sadhvi did not call for genocide. The English translation of her Hindi speech reads, “Those who do Love Jihad, give them a response like Love Jihad. Keep your girls safe, and make sure you impart good Sankar to your girls. Keep weapons in your house. If nothing else, sharpen the vegetable knife and keep it in your house. I am speaking very clearly that even in our house, our knives should be sharpened to cut vegetables. They killed our Harsha will knives. They used the knife to kill our Hindu warriors – they killed Hindus and workers from Bajrang Dal, BJP and Yuva Morcha – they killed them up and cut them. So we should also keep our vegetable knives sharp – you don’t know what situation will arise when. So when our vegetables get cut properly, then the heads of enemies would also cut properly.”
From the simple translation of the speech itself, it becomes abundantly apparent that Sadhvi did not use the word “Muslim” even once in her speech. A call for genocide would entail someone saying that Hindus need to assemble weapons and murder the next Muslim that they see on the roads – Sadhvi said no such thing. She merely reiterated the need for Hindus to be prepared to defend themselves, especially in the wake of Islamist violence after the brutal beheading of Kanhaiya Lal, Umesh Kolhe, and many others for something as fundamental as standing in solidarity with a fellow Hindu.
