A sessions court in Karnataka’s Tumkur district has rejected an anticipatory bail plea filed by a secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) over an alleged hate speech delivered in Tumkur town last month. The VHP secretary, Sharan Pumpwell alias Sharan Kumar, claimed in a speech that the killings of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 and the recent murder of a Hindu youth in Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district on July 28 last year were demonstrations of Hindu power.
On January 30 this year, an FIR was registered against Pumpwell, a former Bajrang Dal leader from Mangaluru who is now the secretary of the VHP, for an alleged hate speech made on January 28 in south Karnataka’s Tumkur town.
The FIR under section 295A of the Indian Penal Code for outraging religious feelings was filed by the Tumkur town police on the basis of a complaint filed by local resident Syed Burhanuddin over Pumpwell’s January 28 speech during a VHP-Bajrang Dal event to mark Hindu valour.
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com . Read the full story here