The local court in Muzaffarnagar will frame charges against BJP MP Sanjeev Baliyan and other accused on December 15 in the case of hate speech before the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.
Mr. Baliyan and six others, including BJP MP Bhartendra Singh, party MLA Suresh Rana and VHP leader Sadhvi Prachi, are accused of inciting violence through their speeches in a Mahapanchayat in Nagla Mandaur on August 30, 2013, ahead of the Muzaffarnagar riots.
The accused were charged under section 188 (violating prohibitory orders), section 354 (assault or criminal force to deter public servants from discharging duty) and section 341 (wrongful restraint) of the Indian Penal Code. The Nagla Mandaur Mahapanchayat was one of the first public meetings that led to mobilisation for the riots in the first week of September 2013.
Communal clashes
About 60 people were killed and 40,000 displaced in the communal clashes in the aftermath of angry and retaliatory mahapanchayats by Muslims and Hindus in the area.
Mr. Baliyan later got the BJP ticket in the 2014 General elections and won the seat. The BJP MP, however, rejects the charges as “politically motivated” and “vendetta politics” of the then Samajwadi Party government that slapped the hate speech case against him.
