Punjab Police have booked Mohammad Mustafa, a former Director General of Police (DGP) and currently principal strategic advisor to Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu — allegedly for promoting enmity between different groups.
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The police have registered a first information report (FIR) against Mr. Mustafa under Section 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence) of the Indian Penal Code, besides Section 125 of the Representation of the People Act. The FIR has been lodged on the complaint of a police officer.
According to the FIR, police personnel received information about a video in which Mr. Mustafa is seen delivering an inflammatory speech based on which he has been booked.
Mr. Mustafa, against whom the FIR has been lodged, is the husband of former Minister Razia Sultana.
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Ms. Sultana is a Congress candidate from Malerkotla for the upcoming Assembly elections. Mr. Mustafa has dismissed the allegation levelled in the FIR, saying his political opponents were trying to make an issue out of nothing.
Mr. Mustafa said he had cautioned Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) workers, who tried to manhandle him while he was on his way to an event by Congress workers. He said in a tweet: “At the event, I warned the AAP workers, who were also from the Muslim community. There was absolutely no Hindu-Muslim context to what happened in Malerkotla to which the quoted video clip relates. It was a verbal outburst unilaterally mischievously provoked by Jhaduwalas (referring to the AAP), all Muslims.”