At the Pratikar Sabha (revenge meet), Hindutva religious leaders also announced their plan to hold a Dharma Sansad in Aligarh on January 22-23.

New Delhi: Upset over police action on calls for genocide at the Haridwar Dharma Sansad, Hindutva religious leaders organised a Pratikar Sabha (revenge meet) at the Swami Sarvanand Ghat in Haridwar on Sunday.

Those attending criticised police officers and the Uttarakhand chief minister for the arrests of Yati Narsinghanand Giri (formerly Saraswati) and Jitendra Narayan Tyagi (aka Waseem Rizvi). The mahamandleshwar of the Niranjani Akhada, Pooja Shakun Pandey (aka Annapurna Bharti) declared that another Dharma Sansad would take place in Aligarh on January 22-23, 2022.

Also present at the event was current Aligarh MLA Anil Parashar. He is the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Aligarh for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly election.

Even as Union minister for minority affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi called for stringent action against those who made hate speeches at the Haridwar event, Parashar shared photos from the event on his timeline. In other photos, he was seen taking blessings from Pandey, who is also accused of making hate speeches.

Swami Anand Swaroop, one of the extremist leaders who called for the killing of Muslims at the Haridwar event, sat on a fast to demand the release of Tyagi and Narsinghanand. He called those priests and seers who did not attend the Pratikar Sabha “cowards” and “impotent”. In the Sabha, Swaroop asked the audience members at Sarvanand Ghat, “After the partition of India, what right do believers of Islam have to live in India? They have their own Islamic Republic of Pakistan.”

He classified the partition as a conspiracy to make Hindus extinct, and defended the hateful speeches at the Haridwar Dharma Sansad as “self-defence”.

He further said, “Our efforts will gradually become a ball of flames, and will turn into a huge fire against Islam and jihad.” His statement was received by other priests and religious leaders with cheers.

He claimed that Dharma Sansads would not stop until Islam is “finished”. He also sent a warning to the chief minister of Uttarakhand, Pushkar Singh Dhami, for “filing false cases against priests” after the Dharma Sansad, going on to say “till the end of Islamic jihadis and jihad supporting chief minister, our trishuls (tridents) will keep moving forward”.

 

According to a Dainik Jagran report, Annapurna Bharti called the arrest of Tyagi and Narsinghanand “unfortunate”, and along with others, sat on a hunger strike.

“Under the pressure of jihadis, the government and the Haridwar administration have violated the constitutional rights of Hindus. Hindus have been sent to jail under those sections in which there is no arrest. It is definitely an attempt to crush the supporters of Sanatan Dharma (Hindu faith),” she was reported to have said.

At the Haridwar Dharma Sansad, she had made an unambiguous call for murdering Muslims en masse. “Nothing is possible without weapons. If you want to eliminate their population then kill them,” she had said while giving a call to arms. “Even if 100 of us are ready to kill 20 lakhs of them (Muslims), then we will be victorious, and go to jail.”

The Pratikar Sabha was originally called by Yati Narsinghanand, but he was arrested on Saturday by the Uttarakhand police in two separate cases, one for insulting women and one for hate speech. According to a report by BBC Hindi, due to the continuous calls for the creation of a Hindu rashtra and “cleaning of Muslims” at the Dharma Sansad event, several Hindu leaders maintained a distance from the Pratikar Sabha.

In a video shared on social media, Bharti can be heard announcing that the Dharma Sansad would be held in Aligarh on 22-23 January 2022, following up on their announcement to hold such events in Aligarh, Kurukshetra and Shimla after the formation of a “core committee” to “fight against Islam” comprising of various Akhada leaders on December 28, 2021.

This story first appeared on thewire.in