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A local court at Haridwar has denied bail to Jitendra Tyagi (earlier known as Waseem Rizvi) on Thursday for his alleged offensive and provocative comments against the Muslim community. Tyagi had delivered a speech at the Haridwar “Dharam Sansad”(religious congregations) that took place last month from December 17-19.

After his speech at the 'Meet', Tyagi was booked under Sections 153A (Promoting enmity between groups), 298 (deliberately hurting religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 by Uttarakhand Police. Allegedly, Tyagi made insulting and inflammatory remarks against Islam and Prophet Muhammad in his speech which were provocative in nature.

Denying bail to Tyagi, the Court noted that, "Prima facie it appears that the same type of offense has been repeated by the accused and only then the accused has been arrested in the present case. The investigation of the case is still pending and in view of the facts and circumstances of the case, it cannot be ruled out that the evidence will not be tampered with if he is granted bail."

"Therefore, keeping in view all these facts and circumstances, in the view of this Court, the accused is not entitled to get bail," Court held. 

On perusal of the documents available on record, the Court noted that in its report, the Uttarakhand Police had submitted that the same type of crime is being repeated by Tyagi, due to which an atmosphere of resentment and unrest has been created in different communities of the society. It is noteworthy that a total of 53 cases are lying against Tyagi for various offences.

Police in its report had asserted Tyagi's remarks generated communal disharmony, which at any time could adversely affect the law and order situation. There was every possibility of rioting in both the communities regarding the religion, the Police had said.

Notably, the Police had submitted that twice, even after service of notice under Section 41A of the CrPC after the first such incident, Tyagi had made objectionable comments on public platforms. 

In its order, the Court also highlighted that as per the case diary, it was alleged that in a video recording of Dharam Sansad, Tyagi could be seen and heard as saying “(Prophet) Mohammed was arrogant, (Prophet) Mohammad was a madman, a terrorist, he had created a terrorist base.”

The order reads that in the case diary, it has been mentioned that the accused further said that “under the pressure of these fundamentalist mullahs, in Haridwar, which is Devanagari, four-five thousand mullahs and clerics of mosques often gather.”

Cause Title: Jitendra Narayan Tyagi @Waseem Rizvi vs State of UP