Jitendra Narayan Tyagi alias Wasim Rizvi was arrested by the Uttarakhand Police on Thursday in connection with the three-day-long Hindu Parliament organised in Haridwar in December 2021 where genocidal calls against Muslims delivered.
This is the first arrest in connection with the hate-speech conclave. Former chairman of Uttar Pradesh Shia Central Waqf Board and a Hindutva supporter Syed Waseem Rizvi converted to Hinduism months ago.
Following the huge outrage against the Islamophobic event, the police had registered a case against Tyagi and others under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, etc) in Haridwar police station.
Others who were booked were Dasna temple priest Yati Narsinghanand, Hindu Mahasabha general secretary Annapurna, Sindhu Sagar, Dharamdas, Parmananda, Anand Swaroop, Ashwini Upadhyay, Suresh Chahwan, and Prabodhanand Giri.
The arrest comes a d day after the Supreme Court issued notice to Uttarakhand government in a petition seeking an independent inquiry into the anti-Muslim hate speech at the ‘Dharam Sansad’ in Haridwar and Delhi in December last year.
The bench headed by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana allowed the petitioners to approach local authorities with their plea to stop a similar event.
Several Hindu priests were caught on record giving genocidal calls against Muslims during the day event attended by dozens of people. Open calls for the killing of Muslims to establish a Hindu Rashtra were made at the event.
The Haridwar event was organised by Yati Narsinghanand and the other in Delhi by ‘Hindu Yuva Vahini’. Yati Narsinghanand, facing several FIRs in UP, called for a “war against Muslims” and urged “Hindus to take up weapons.”
