Pune (Maharashtra)The Pune Police said on Wednesday that it has taken Hindu religious leader Kalicharan Maharaj into its custody from the Raipur Police. He has been detained in Maharashtra in a case related to alleged provocative speeches registered against Kalicharan and five others. Kalicharan is being brought to Pune, where he will be produced in a court later, after a ‘transit remand’ granted by a court in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur, officials said.
“We have taken Kalicharan into custody from the Chhattisgarh Police and he is being brought to Pune,” an official of the Khadak police station said. The Pune Police had registered a case against Kalicharan, right-wing leader Milind Ekbote, Captain Digendra Kumar (retd) and others for allegedly making provocative speeches and hurting religious sentiments during an event here. The ‘Shiv Pratap Din’ program was organized by the Hindu Aghadi organization led by Ekbote on 19 December 2021 in memory of the incident of the killing of Mughal general Afzal Khan by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
Maharashtra Police took custody of religious leader Kalicharan from Chhattisgarh Police after a court in Raipur granted his transit remand yesterday
He will be produced before a court in Pune today in hate speech case
(File photo) pic.twitter.com/9tyV98B2Oj
– ANI (@ANI) January 5, 2022
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Later, in the Khadak police station, Kalicharan and others were booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 295 (a) (intentional and malicious intent to outrage religious feelings of any class), 298 (willfully hurting religious sentiments of any person). A case was registered with intent to deliver) and 505(2) (making false statements with intent to cause enmity, hatred or ill-will, relating to spreading of rumors in a religious place).
According to the FIR, all the accused allegedly made provocative speeches with an intention to hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims and Christians and to create communal rift among the people. Cases have also been registered against Kalicharan in Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra for his alleged derogatory remarks against Mahatma Gandhi during an event in Raipur. Kalicharan was arrested last week by the Chhattisgarh Police from Madhya Pradesh in that case.