Plea in SC relating to communal violence in Gurugram and other incidents

New Delhi [India]: Following a number of occurrences, including calls for a Muslims boycott and the closing of mosques in Gurugram, the Supreme Court received a new petition seeking to initiate appropriate action against the speakers who instigated communal disharmony.

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned the plea on Monday before a bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud.

He mentioned some incidents that have happened in Gurugram whereby it was said that people who employ any member of a minority community in shops will all be called  ‘gaddars’ (traitors).

According to the application, after the Nuh violence, more than 27 rallies have been organized across various States where blatant hate speeches calling for the killing and social and economic boycott of Muslims have been openly delivered.

The application mentioned various rallies that have taken place between August 1 to August 7.

The petition made reference to a number of transcripts and videos. It also claims that residents and store owners received warnings that their businesses would be boycotted if they continued to hire or keep any Muslim person after two days.

The rallies were organised in various places in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

The application submitted that such rallies that demonize communities and openly call for violence and killing of people are not limited in terms of their impact to just those areas that are presently dealing with communal tensions but will inevitably lead to communal disharmony and violence of an unfathomable scale across the country.

It further submitted that considering the extremely precarious situation currently prevailing in the aforementioned areas a very legitimate apprehension of communal persecution has arisen that requires the urgent attention of the top court.

The application sought to issue direction to the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, the Director General of Police, Uttarakhand, the Director General of Police, Uttar Pradesh, the Director General of Police, Haryana and such other authorities to take adequate action so as to ensure that the rallies in the nature of rallies where hate speeches are delivered are not allowed.

The plea sought to issue directly if the authorities concerned fail to stop the aforementioned protests, then they should explain what actions the Respondents and other authorities took.

The application also requested to take prompt, appropriate action against Police officials who attended these demonstrations and disregarded measures to prevent the delivery of hate speech there.