"I am with him in each of these three cases, are you going to arrest him alone?" controversial Hindutva Leader Yati Narsinghanand asked the Uttarakhand Police on Thursday, 13 January, after they arrested Wasim Rizvi alias Jitendra Narayan Tyagi in connection with the Haridwar hate speech conclave.
The hate speech conclave was organised by 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 Tyagi'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?)"
He is reportedly protesting the police action at Haridwar's Sarvanand Ghat.
'Became a Hindu Trusting Me'
The policeman, in response, is heard saying: "We are not telling you to not come," requesting the Hindutva leader to enter from behind.
Narsinghanand is also heard saying that Rizvi "became a Hindu" after trusting him, and that the leader should "understand" why he was arrested."
Addressing the media on 14 January, Narsinghanand reiterated the same.
Earlier in December, the police had registered a case against Rizvi alias 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.
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