FIR lodged against Kiran Bedi for terming NE people as ‘immigrants’
TNT : The Assam police CID police station here today registered a FIR against five top BJP leaders including the party’s New Delhi chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi. The other accused persons were BJP’s Delhi unit’s president Satish Upadhyay, chairman of the vision document Harsh Vardhan, spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor and party’s Pradesh in-charge Prabhat Jha.
A local businessman Arun Pathak lodged a complaint with the agency against the saffron party leaders this morning after BJP in its vision document for Delhi polls referred people from northeast as ‘immigrants’.
“The word ‘immigrant’ was distinct and the document surely was printed after thorough proofing. It is a deliberate and racial act against the people of the region,” said Pathak, the complainant.
In his FIR, Pathak said that BJP by putting the offensive contents in the document and circulating it have intentionally promoted and attempted to endorse racial disharmony between the people from NE and other parts of India.
He even alleged that the changed version of the vision document was derogatory for the people of the region.
After huge protests erupted in the region, mostly in Assam, against the use of the word ‘immigrants’, the party’s national and state leaders have apologized for the act and termed it as a ‘clerical mistake’ and changed it.
“The saffron party issued a clarification saying it as printing mistake and then changed to ‘people from the NE in Delhi’. It is equally offensive in the sense that northeast doesn’t belong only to the people of NE origin. There is no statutory expression in law like this. By using such phrase, the accused persons have further alienated the people of the region on racial and geographical origin,” he alleged.
The FIR slapped the top saffron leaders with criminal charges of promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.
