Gorakhpur: A local Gorakhpur court has ordered the registration of an FIR against the activist filed a hate speech case against now Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath. Mostly being seen as a political vendetta by the BJP, the court ordered an FIR against activist Parvez Parvaz, who was the petitioner in the 2007 hate speech case.
 
The order came after the investigating agency told the court that “a doctored video” was submitted as evidence.
 
Chief judicial magistrate (CJM), Nusrat Khan ordered the police to lodge an FIR against activist Pervez Parvaz, who is already serving jail sentence in a gang-rape case lodged against him in June this year.
 
“Parvaz had filed a petition against the then-Gorakhpur MP Adityanath and four others, accusing Adityanath of giving hate speech and allegedly inciting communal violence in Gorakhpur after a person was killed during Muharram procession in 2007. The case was handed over to the CBCID and during investigation, Parvaz had produced a DVD of the speech as evidence. After the forensic test, CBCID submitted its final report, which was challenged by Parvaz in the high court. However, the court rejected his plea and now the CJM ordered an FIR against Parvaz,” Hindustan Times reported.
 
BJP leader Shiv Pratap Shukla (now minister of state, finance), MLA Radha Mohan Das Aggarwal, Anju Chowdhary (former mayor and now a member of women commission) and Dr YD Singh, former MLC, were also booked for the 2007 riots.
 
“The court was apprised that the DVD was edited to show the content as hate speech, after which it passed an order to lodge an FIR against the complainant,” said Ashok Kumar Singh, who appeared for the petitioner.
 
The video was allegedly tampered with and was used to exonerate Adityanath and others from the case soon after he assumed charge as the chief minister in 2017.
 
Background
In 2007, Parvez Parvaz, who then worked as a journalist, and his associate Asad Hayat, had alleged in the police complaint that provocative speech by Adityanath led to the riot.
 
“All these years, the case was pending in court and the then-SP government did not allow the prosecution of the accused. Soon after the formation of the BJP government in May 2017, the chief secretary denied permission to prosecute the accused. Later, the Allahabad high court too rejected a plea seeking permission to prosecute Adityanath. Earlier this year, Parvaz and Hayat moved the Supreme Court demanding a probe by an independent agency,” the report said.
 
Parvaz and his associate Jumman, a faith healer, were arrested after a local woman accused them of raping her. Parvaz dismissed the allegations, saying he was being framed for fighting against injustice.
 
During investigations, the charges against Parvaz and Jumman were found to be fake and a closure report was also submitted to the court but it was rejected and a fresh investigation was ordered by the then SSP Shalabh Mathur.
 
In the fresh probe, the police claimed that there were corroborative evidence against the accused and the medical examination of the victim confirmed the sexual assault. He was subsequently sent to jail.
 
“Imagine, Pervez is a second accused in the rape case, but he was denied bail, while the main accused is out. Most witnesses have said that there was no such incident at the spot where the complainant has accused the two of rape,” Syed Farman Naqvi, counsel for Parvaz said, adding that the police arrested him just because the complainant named one Pervez in her FIR.
 
Speaking to The Wire, Syed Farman Naqvi, counsel for Pervez, asked why the Delhi lab did not take direct voice samples of Adityanath. “Nobody stopped the lab from doing so. It was a minor loophole in the DFR that became the state government’s defence,” Naqvi said.
 
He said the police did not give any explanation why the activist was arrested. It was only months later that the complainant identified the activist as her alleged rapist. “We think that this is a case of political vendetta, nothing else. The woman has been forced to implicate Parvaz Pervez in the matter,” said Naqvi.
 
Parvaz is likely to face another charge of doctoring evidence after the court order.
 

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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.
 

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