Mumbai: In November last year, the Telangana high court laid down three strict conditions while setting aside MLA Raja Singh’s preventive detention order. Singh, who has over 100 criminal cases against him, had spent 76 days in jail under preventive detention for stoking communal tensions in Hyderabad.
In the November 9, 2022 order, Justices A. Abhishek Reddy and Juvvadi Sridevi laid down clear restrictions. Singh “shall not participate in or hold any celebratory rallies/meetings after his release”. Singh shall be prohibited from giving “any interviews to any kind of media houses including the print media” and, in the future, Singh “shall not make any provocative speeches against any religion or post any derogatory or offensive posts on any social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube, etc.”
It took Singh less than three months to violate all three conditions. He was in Mumbai on January 29 to attend an event organised by a radical Hindu group ‘Sakal Hindu Samaj’. At the Hindu Janakrosh Morcha organised by the group, Singh declared that if the Maharashtra state government didn’t come up with an anti-conversion law, Hindus would soon be up in arms. The anti-conversion law, one of the most contentious issues in the country, is ostensibly to restrict ‘forced conversion’, but experts have said that it infringes on the right to practice religion.
Singh had not simply promoted the idea of a new law. He was provoking the gathering to pick up arms and attack Muslims. He used abusive, derogatory words and called for direct violence against the Muslim community. His speech not just violated the high court order but clearly promoted enmity between two religious groups, as described under Sections 153 B and 295-A of the Indian Penal Code for promoting enmity between two communities and for deliberately and maliciously acting with an intent to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.
Following Singh’s speech, another Hindutva leader Sakshi Gaikwad made an equally provocative speech, making an open call for a genocidal attack and treating the Muslim community like “sacrificial lambs”, waiting to be sacrificed.
The Hindu Jan Akrosh Morcha began from Shivaji Park in Dadar and culminated at Kamgar Maidan in Parel, covering a distance of more than four kilometres. Leaders and workers of right-wing outfits such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) were part of this rally.