His SC plea challenged an Allahabad High Court order accepting the state government’s refusal to prosecute Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in a 2007 hate speech case.
Gorakhpur: Parvez Parvaz, an ex-journalist and activist, had filed a plea in Supreme Court against the then local MP and now Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for inciting violence through hate speech in 2007. He was arrested on Tuesday night on the charges of gangrape.
His SC plea challenged an Allahabad High Court order accepting the state government’s refusal to prosecute Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in a 2007 hate speech case.
The case against him was lodged at Rajghat police station on June 4. “The Gorakhpur police arrested Parvez late Tuesday night from Kotwali area of the city and produced him today before a local court, which sent him to jail,” said Additional SP, City, Vinay Kumar Singh.
“Investigating officer (IO) of the case and station house officer of the Mahila police station Shalini Singh said, ‘On June 4, a 40-year-old woman had got a case lodged against Parvez Parvaz and one Jumman alleging gangrape at Rajghat police station. She had alleged that she had gone to Jumman’s house on June 3, where he and Parvez raped her.’ She added that a medical examination had confirmed sexual assault,” The Indian Express reported.
“Advocate S Farman Naqvi, Parvez’s counsel, said he had filed a petition in court two days ago seeking a stay against the arrests of Parvez and Jumman. When the case was heard on Wednesday before a bench comprising of Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice D K Singh the court had stayed the arrest of Jumman and said that as Parvez has already been arrested his application for stay of arrest has become infructuous,” the report said.
“Naqvi further said he had stated in the petition that on July 25, the IO at Rajghat police station had submitted a closure report stating that no evidence of sexual assault had been found against both accused. However, the closure report was not filed in court and the case transferred to the Mahila Police Station,” the report added.
“Advocate Asad Hayat, a co-petitioner in the 2007 alleged hate-speech case while it was in the Allahabad High Court, alleged that Mr. Parwaz was arrested in a “fake case” under “political pressure”. ‘The police had already expunged the case and submitted a final report but they still reopened the case. The arrest came a day before the petition for stay on the arrest was to come up in the Allahabad High Court,’ said Mr. Hayat. Meanwhile, a Bench of Justice Ramesh Sinha of the Allahabad High Court ordered a stay on the arrest of the second accused Mahmood,” a report by The Hindu said.
There are different versions of the woman’s story in different media outlets. In one she said that she had visited an ophthalmologist where she was raped and another where she visited a local baba for a religious exorcism where the incident happened.
“A local woman in her thirties had accused two persons — Mahmood alias Jumman Baba and Mr. Parwaz — of gang-raping her by luring her to an isolated place near Pandeyhatta late on June 3 under the pretext of helping her resolve her family problems. ‘He [Muhammad] pointed a revolver to my head and committed the misdeed. There was another person with him [Mr. Parwaz] who raped me,” said the complainant. She claims she came in touch with Mahmood, who is a baba (ascetic), at a local shrine, when she was looking for help to get her estranged husband under “control” through “jhaad-phoonkh”, a form of exorcism,” the report by Hindu said.
“The survivor alleged that she had gone to Mahmood, who is an ophthalmologist, for treatment where he and Pervez raped her,” Times of India reported.
“Communal clashes broke out in Gorakhpur and adjoining districts after a Hindu youth was killed in a clash during a Muharram procession. As per an FIR registered, Adityanath allegedly delivered a provocative speech calling out for revenge against the minority community in retaliation for the death of the youth. The police initially refused to register an FIR and lodged it only after the HC intervened,” reported The Hindu.
Last May, after the BJP came to power in UP, the state government refused sanction to prosecute Adityanath, who by then had become the CM, on grounds that the prime evidence in the form of a CD had allegedly been tampered with.
“However, In February, 2018, the HC, too, dismissed the petition saying that it did not find any procedural error in the conduct of the investigation and remitted the matter to the sessions court in Gorakhpur to ‘pass an appropriate order in accordance with law’. The HC order was challenged in the Supreme Court, which in September 2018 refused to disturb the high court order. Now, as per the high court order, the sessions court has sent out notices to both the parties to appear before it on October 20,” reported Times of India.