New Delhi, Oct 27 (IANS) A plea was filed in a court here on Wednesday against Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar over his statement during a meeting with workers of BJP's Kisan Morcha on October 3, in which he allegedly asked the party members to stand up against protesting farmers.
The petition alleged that as per the video of the meeting, the CM was asking party workers to make "500-600-1,000 volunteers" in every district of north and west Haryana, and be ready to "face sticks, imprisonment", which will make them "big leaders".
In the plea filed before Sachin Gupta, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Rouse Avenue Court, complainant Advocate Amit Sahni, contended that the link of the CM's meeting with partymen was live on YouTube.
However, after the portion of his controversial remarks went viral on social media, the video was taken off, but it was broadcast by several persons connected with the Chief Minister Office, Haryana.
The video is still available on various social platforms and news websites, the petitioner said.
"The contents of the videos make it abundantly clear that the accused has committed offence under sections 109, 153, 153A and 505 IPC by giving provocation with intent to cause riot, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony and making statements conducing to public mischief under section 109, 153, 153 A, 505 IPC," the plea stated.
Pointing out a series of related events, the plea said that earlier Haryana IAS officer Ayush Sinha made a controversial statement to "break heads" of farmers.
It also highlighted the controversial incident that took place during Khattar's 'Jan Ashirwad Yatra' in 2019 as part of his campaign in the run-up to the Haryana assembly elections, in which he was allegedly heard saying "I will chop your head off," in a viral video.
Quoting "Be ye never so high, the law is above you", the words of English Judge Lord Denning, the petitioner said that no one is above the law and that the law applies to everyone equally, regardless of anyone's rank or position.
It is the largest agricultural protest to take place in India and others from around the world have also joined in, tens of thousands of farmers have camped for months on major highways to New Delhi to oppose the three laws.
On Thursday night, Shah reached to Nadda's residence and meeting between the two leaders lasted for about an hour. The Shah-Nadda meeting came after a series of events. Earlier, on Wednesday, Amarinder met Shah.
The police identified the victim as hakeem Satnam Singh who was attacked at his clinic on Thursday in the limits of Faqirabad police station. A police official said that unknown assailants, whose number could not be ascertained, opened fire on the victim and managed to escape from the scene, the Dawn news report said.
Chief Secretary H.K. Diwedi held an emergency meeting with the District Magistrates and Superintendent of Polices of West and East Burdwan, Bankura, Birbhum, Hooghly, and Howrah on Thursday evening and took stock of the situation. After that the state government decided to deploy the Army in certain areas. However, NDRF teams have been kept on standby.
According to sources, Amarinder Singh will convene a meeting of leaders close to him in a few days to consider the formation of his new party, which will include all the leaders of the anti-Sidhu faction.
The arrested persons have been identified as Abdul Khalid, Shriram Chaurasia, Zishan Ahmad, Vikas Kesarwani and Krishna Kumar. Inspector (Kareli) Anupam Sharma said the arrested persons had sold SIM cards to law-breakers at high prices after creating fake IDs.
