Wasim Rizvi alias Jitendra Narayan Tyagi was arrested by the Uttarakhand Police on Thursday, 13 January, in connection with the three-day-long hate speech conclave organised in Haridwar in December 2021, Swatantra Kumar, SP City Haridwar, confirmed to The Quint.
The hate speech conclave was organised by the controversial Hindutva leader Yati Narsinghanand from 17 to 19 December in Uttarakhand's pilgrimage city of Haridwar, where multiple calls to kill minorities and attack their religious spaces were made.
Narsinghanand's reaction on Rizvi's arrest was caught on camera, where he could be heard asking police officials: Inhe kyun giraftaar kar rahe ho? (Why are you arresting him?)
Earlier in December, the police had registered a case against Wasim Rizvi alias Jitendra Narayan 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.
Later, 10 people, including former Chief of Shia Waqf Board Wasim Rizvi, Dasna temple priest Yati Narsinghanand, and Hindu Mahasabha general secretary Annapurna, were named in a First Information Report (FIR) filed at the Jwalapur police station in Haridwar.
Others who were booked were Sindhu Sagar, Dharamdas, Parmananda, Anand Swaroop, Ashwini Upadhyay, Suresh Chahwan, and Prabodhanand Giri.
Calls for Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing
The hate-filled 'Dharam Sansad' ran from 17-19 December 2021 and was organised by Hindutva leader Yati Narsinghanand, notorious priest of the Dasna Devi temple in Ghaziabad and recently anointed 'Mahamandaleshwar' of the Juna Akhara.
The event saw explicit calls for genocide and ethnic cleansing from several right-wing Hindu leaders, recorded on video and shared widely.
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