Nanded police say they have received no complaint
Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Praveen Togadia tried to outdo Akbaruddin Owaisi within a fortnight of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) MLA being sent to jail on charges of delivering a hate speech at Nirmal town in Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh.
At a public meeting at Bhokar town in Nanded district of Maharashtra, just 80 km from Nirmal, on January 22, Mr. Togadia attacked Akbaruddin Owaisi in particular and the minority community in general.
The VHP leader was lustily cheered by the gathering at Bhokar as he continued with his inflammatory speech, just as Akbaruddin Owaisi’s speech was received with cheers by an enthusiastic audience at Nirmal on December 22, 2012.
Complaint filed
A police complaint was filed against Mr. Togadia in Hyderabad on Tuesday after clippings of his speech at Bhokar went viral on social networking sites.
The clippings showed Togadia thundering about what happened in Nelli (Assam), Bhagalpur (Bihar) and in Gujarat, where the police stood aside. This was evidently a response to Akbaruddin Owaisi’s challenge at Nirmal to withdraw police forces for 15 minutes.
Besides the nature of the speeches by Akbaruddin and Togadia, there are other similarities too. Complainants in both the cases approached the police and the courts on the basis of video clippings on the Youtube.
Also, the police at both Nirmal and Bhokar towns remained unaware about the explosive content of the speeches despite monitoring the events. In Mr. Owaisi’s case, a suo motu case was booked by Nirmal police on January 2 — 11 days after his speech.
Nanded district police said they did not find anything amiss with the Bhokar public meeting.
When contacted on phone by The Hindu, Bhokar Inspector of Police Sandeep Triyambak Munde said police had issued permission for the meeting held at the Zilla Parishad ground.
Hindu Hitchintak Sammelan, as the meeting was called, was organised by the VHP’s Kinwat District branch. Mr. Togadia arrived the previous evening in Nanded and reportedly addressed meetings there before going over to Bhokar, about 50 kms away. “There was no disturbance of peace in Bhokar. No one from any community has filed any complaint after Togadia’s public meeting”, the Inspector clarified.
Nanded Superintendent of Police Vithal Jadhav and Inspector General of Police Sandeep Bishnoi were not available for a response.