Haridwar Dharma Sansad hate speech: Dasna temple priest Yati Narasinghanand released from jail
Dehradun, Feb 18: Dasna temple head priest Yati Narasinghanand who was arrested in January in connection with the Haridwar Dharma Sansad hate speech against Muslims and other cases has been released from jail.
Immediately after walking out of the Haridwar district jail on Thursday, Narsinghanand proceeded to Sarvanand ghat to resume his hunger strike demanding the release of co-accused in the case, Jitendra Narayan Tyagi, formerly known as Waseem Rizvi.
Narsinghanand's release follows bail granted to him on Tuesday by a local court in a case slapped on him under section 509 of the Indian Penal Code for making objectionable remarks against women and abusing a journalist.
Though granted bail in the Dharma Sansad case on February 7, Narsinghanand was still in jail due to the other cases in which the same court granted him bail on Tuesday.
The Hindutva leader had organised a conclave in Haridwar in December last year where several speakers delivered hate speeches against Muslims.
Talking to reporters after coming out of jail, Narsinghanand said his release without that of Tyagi did not mean anything and he was going to resume his hunger strike at the Sarvanand ghat in Haridwar.
He said the protest will continue till Tyagi is released.
Tyagi's bail application will be heard by the Uttarakhand High Court on February 21.
Rizvi, a former Uttar Pradesh Shia Central Waqf Board chairman, had adopted the name of Jitendra Narayan Tyagi after converting to Hinduism.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
