Maharashtra: People's Union Calls On DCM Devendra Fadnavis For Action Against Sakal Hindu Samaj’s ‘Love Jihad’ Rallies

The Maharashtra Unit of People's Union of Civil Liberties written to the state police chief and Home Minister Devendra Fadnavis calling for preventive action against Sakal Hindu Samaj. PUCL alleged that the morchas announced by the Hindu organisation have communal agenda ahead of the assembly elections.

After Sakal Hindu Samaj, an umbrella body of Hindu right wing organisations including Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, Shiv Pratishthan and Sanatan Sanstha and other outfits, had announced to intensify its protests against “love jihad” and “land jihad” across the state in August, PUCL has raised concerns regarding the upcoming rallies and have alleged hate speech in the announcement. On Monday, PUCL wrote to the Director General of Police Maharashtra Rashmi Shukla and home minister seeking urgent preventive actions against the rallies.

Alleging that the communal rallies can turn out to be extremely dangerous, PUCL has demanded that urgent steps should be taken to ensure law and order in the state. It demanded that communal hate speech be prevented in Maharashtra at all costs and serious measures are taken to ensure that such incidents of communal hate speech against minorities do not take place. It also demanded that Sakal Hindu Samaj, its constituent organisations and its speakers indulging in hate speech are not permitted to hold any more rallies and commit even a single offence of hate speech.

It also called for strict action to be taken by the police to investigate all the incidents of communal hate speech made at all the earlier rallies and public events organized by Sakal Hindu Samaj in Maharashtra since November 2022, and to arrest and prosecute hate speech offenders forthwith. It demanded strict implementation of Supreme Court orders of taking suo moto action against hate speech, registering FIRs and prosecuting the offenders of hate speech for their crimes at the earliest.

“The rallies in the prelude to the assembly elections are extremely dangerous and a serious threat to communal harmony, peace and public order in the state. It is also a threat to the conduct of free and fair elections in the state. The Sakal Hindu Samaj’s claim that there being a Hindu government in Maharashtra, they have a freehand to pursue Hindutva agenda aggressively, is a shameful and boastful acknowledgement of the impunity they believe to enjoy and their complete lack of respect for the rule of law. If Sakal Hindu Samaj is allowed to conduct more such Morchas / rallies and to spread hate across the districts in the state, it could have catastrophic consequences on law and order,” stated the letter.