A First Information Report (FIR) has been registered against Rashtriya Shoshit Samaaj Party (RSSP) president Swami Prasad Maurya at the Manchi police station in Sonbhadra on Thursday for hate speech, insulting religious belief over his statement on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). In his petition, the complainant Bindu Kharwar, a local, alleged that Mr. Maurya in his post on social media handle X (formerly Twitter) tried to promote enmity between different groups and committed acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony. The FIR is registered under Section 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) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 66 of the Information Technology (IT) Act.
The Manchi police in Sonbhadra district could not be reached despite multiple attempts for a response. Mr. Maurya in his post on March 11 alleged, “Implementing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is an anti-people decision of the Union Government. It is also anti-tribal, Dalit, backward, poor and minority. Even today, revenue records are not available with the tribals and nomadic tribes living in the forests for hundreds of years, and the Dalits, backward classes, the poor, deprived and the minorities living on the land of the village society. Through this law, there is a disgusting conspiracy to torture crores of such people and to dispossess them and deprive them of citizenship. I strongly condemn this anti-people law,” he wrote.
Mr. Maurya, who formed his own outfit last month after quitting the Samajwadi Party (SP), served in multiple positions under the Uttar Pradesh government. He joined the SP before the 2022 Assembly polls after resigning from the post of Cabinet Minister in the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government and as well as from the BJP alleging injustice to the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the saffron camp. Mr. Maurya remained in the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for decades between 1996-2016 holding key ministries under the chief ministership of Mayawati and the Leader of the Opposition post between 2012-2016.
