No cognizable offence for FIR against Thakur, Verma, police tells court

Delhi Police told a court here on Wednesday that prima facie no cognizable offence was found for lodging FIR against Union minister Anurag Thakur and his BJP colleague and MP Parvesh Verma for their alleged hate speech in relation to anti-CAA protest at Shaheen Bagh.

The submissions were made in an action taken report (ATR), filed before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vishal Pahuja, who was hearing a complaint by CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat seeking FIRs against Thakur and Verma.

The court, which reserved order for March 2 on whether to direct the police to lodge FIRs, had on February 5 directed it to file an ATR.

In the ATR filed on Wednesday, the police said the legal opinion has been sought in the matter and requested the court grant more time to file the final report, the court sources said.

The report said that the word 'gaddar (traitor)', used in the rally by Thakur, "does not point to any particular section of the society. Surmises and conjecture cannot be the basis for initiating any legal action".

It said: "In the referred speech, the speaker is pointing to a group of protesters and is not pointing to any particular community.

"He (Thakur) is not provoking the crowd to start any riot or taking any retaliatory action against the protesters."
It further stated that "the complainant has referred to incidents of violence and it has already been clarified that both are independent acts which did not have any connection to the speeches mentioned in the complaint."
Karat has said in her complaint that "Thakur and Verma had sought to incite people and as a result of which three incidents of firing took place at two different protest sites in Delhi."