Social activist and Aam Aadmi Party member Ashish Khetan on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court with an urgent plea to protect his life, liberty and freedom of speech and expression from “radical right-wing extremist” organisations.
In a mentioning before the Vacation Bench of L. Nageswara Rao and Navin Sinha, Mr. Khetan’s counsel Sunil Fernandes said his client had been receiving death threats from these organisations. The court has posted the case for June 5.
No response to appeal
Mr. Khetan said communications sent to Home Minister Rajnath Singh and to the Delhi Police Commissioner about the threats had no response. Mr. Khetan, in his writ petition, said even Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had written to the Home Minister about the issue, but to no avail.
Mr. Khetan, who is the vice-chairman of the Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi, named Sanatan Sanstha, Abhinav Bharat, Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, Hindi Rakshak Samiti, Bajrang Dal, Durga Vahini, Sri Ram Sene, Vishwa Hindu Parishad as “radical Right Wing Extremist (RWE)” organisations in his petition filed under Article 32 of the Constitution.
“Such radical RWE organisations have notably in the last couple of years carried out several murderous attacks on those who do not share their ideology and those who are rationalists, secularists, free-thinkers, anti-superstition and critical thinkers. Many members of the RWE have also been convicted for their involvement in mass violence in several parts of the country,” the petition said.
The AAP leader alleged that since 2014, such organisations had gained in prominence and the government had failed to take effective action and discharge its duty to safeguard liberty and free speech.
Mr. Khetan said he had done several investigative articles on the RWE organisations during his 17 years as a journalist.
He said he had “genuine and reasonable basis” to believe that he would meet a fate similar to noted rationalists and intellectuals like Narendra Dhabolkar, Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi. “He [Mr. Khetan] has been threatened that he is next in line,” the petition said.
