Last Updated on July 16, 2021 by Administrator
By Himani Baid
“Hate speech based on religion or caste has become a fashion nowadays and police also seems to be helpless of dealing with such incidents. Such kind of people who are trying to create disharmony and imparting hatred amongst the common people are actually harming this country more than the pandemic”; Gurugram court said while dismissing the bail application of Ram Bhagat Gopal in the order dated July 16.
Famously known as Ram Bhakt Gopal amongst the right-wingers, Ram Bhagat was arrested earlier this month after a complaint was filed against him for delivering a hate speech against minority communities at a Mahapanchayath coordinated by VHP against Love Jihad and religious conversion in Pataudi, Haryana.
Judicial Magistrate Mohammad Sageer in this strongly worded order expressed that people who give such communally charged speeches and create disharmony are more harmful to the country than the COVID pandemic.
The Court additionally said that “Hate speech lays the groundwork for later, broad attacks on vulnerable that can range from discrimination to ostracism, segregation, deportation, violence and, in the most extreme cases, to genocide. Hate speech also impacts a protected group’s ability to respond to the substantive ideas under debate, thereby placing a serious barrier to their full participation in our democracy,”
Furthermore, the Court said that the act of the accused sums to hate speech and it can also lead to “destruction of our society” while dismissing the bail plea.
In conclusion, the order said “The act of the accused i.e. hate speech qua instigating abduction and killing of girls and persons of a particular religious community is itself a form of violence and such people and their inflammatory speeches are an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit. It leads to the destruction of our society as people will fight based on religion’
