Mangaluru: A case has been slapped against VHP leader Sadhvi Balika Saraswati from Madhya Pradesh who was the star speaker at the Hindu Samajotsava held here on March 1 for allegedly disturbing communal harmony through her provocative utterances.
Police said the case has been booked under Sections 153(A) of IPC based on a complaint from Suresh Bhat Bakrabail, Dakshina Kannada District President of Komu Souharda Vedike, an organisation that professes by communal harmony.
Section 153(A) states that any person who tries to trigger disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities in any manner is liable for prosecution.
Stoking a controversy, the Sadhvi, in her speech, had said “People who eat and live in India and praise Pakistan should be hit with shoes and sent to Pakistan.”
She had also said Ram Mandir would be built in Ayodhya and another one in Islamabad and Hindus would go there and offer ‘poojas and archanas'.
“If anyone wants to live in India, he or she will have to say Vande Mataram,” she had said. In the complaint lodged at Pandeshwar police station, Bakrabail requested that suitable action be taken against the Sadhvi and the organisers of the Samajotsava for the inflammatory speech.
Police had earlier said a case would be registered if any complaint came up against the speech. Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Santosh Babu said Mangaluru South Police Station had also received a complaint from a Muslim organisation about the speech. Since there was no provision to register multiple complaints about an incident, both the complaints would be taken up for investigation together, he said.
