Lucknow court reserves order on plea to summon Owaisi, Raut

ucknow, March 2 (IANS) A local court on Thursday reserved order for March 10 on a plea of IPS officer Amitabh Thakur to summon AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi and Shiv Sena’s Rajya Sabha member and Samna Executive Editor Sanjay Raut and punish them for an article published in April 2015.

The petitioner Indian Police Service officer had said the uttrances of the two politicians were extremely serious and sensitive, as published in the article, and prayed the court to summon and punish them.

The complainant said Raut had pleaded for taking away the voting rights of the Muslims in his article ‘Rokhtok – Mumbai me Owaisi ki Uchhalkud: Sawdhan, bil me sanpole hain’ in Hindi daily Samna on April 12, 2015.

The court of Lucknow Chief Judicial Magistrate Sandhya Srivastava is hearing the matter.

Thakur said it clearly amounts to offences under Sections 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage reli­gious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or reli­gious beliefs), 298 (uttering words etc. with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) etc. of the Indian Penal Code.

Similarly, the petitioner said, the statements attributed to All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen leader Owaisi in this article also were tantamount to same offences.