'Pressure' on witnesses in Varun hate speech case

Tehelka in its expose alleges local level Samajwadi Party members were favorably inclined towards helping Varun Gandhi

Barely two months after being exonerated by a court on charges of making hate speeches in Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh, in March 2009, Varun Gandhi, now a national general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), again came under fire after a sting operation carried out by Tehelka magazine exposed that all the 88 witnesses were pressurised to turn hostile in court.

Gandhi, a member of Parliament, had given several of the speeches in question at Pilibhit before the Lok Sabha elections that year.

The BJP member was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police on March 28, after three cases were registered against him. However, Gandhi was let off on all charges by the court in February this year. Gandhi represents Pilibhit in the Lok Sabha.

Tehelka’s expose alleges local Samajwadi Party (the ruling party in UP and ostensibly opposed to the BJP) members were favourably inclined towards helping Gandhi. Tehelka further alleges a quid pro quo between Gandhi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.

Tehelka has alleged Gandhi had “indulged in anti-party activities, deliberately making his own party candidate lose an Assembly election in Uttar Pradesh in 2012, so that a Samajwadi Party (SP) leader sympathetic to him could win and help him fix the cases against him”.

The hidden camera of Tehelka reveals several witnesses saying how and why they turned hostile in court. Witness number 18, Mohammed Raza of the SP, and witness number 6, Abdul Rehman, who testified in court that they had heard nothing, said on hidden camera that they were pressurised and how “there is corruption everywhere”.

Dayal Gangwar, BJP vice-president from Pilibhit, is also caught on tape on how the minister of state in the SP government in Uttar Pradesh, Riyaz Ahmed, was asked to make minority community witnesses turn hostile.

“This is a conspiracy against Varun Gandhi because he is holding rallies in Sultanpur. Why should we believe people making a statement before a hidden camera when they are not on record? People shown in the sting had made statements before the court under oath,” said a BJP leader on the Tehelka expose.

Congress spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed said, “The truth should come out. It is now the responsibility of the UP government to ascertain the facts and put it before the courts. The courts then need to take a decision on this. If an expose has shown this, then it is the duty of the state government to put it before the court.”