By IANS,
New Delhi: Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy Monday landed in trouble for his newspaper article, in which he suggested revoking of voting rights of Indian Muslims, with the Delhi Police filing a criminal case against him for spreading enmity between communities.
“We have registered a case under the relevant section of IPC. We are investigating the matter,” Deputy Commissioner of Police Ashok Chand, who heads the crime branch, told IANS.
Meanwhile, Swamy rubbished the charges against him, indicating it was a manifestation of political vendetta. “I wrote the article in July. The FIR is filed in October. The motive seems to be my stand on 2G (spectrum scam),” he said.
Swamy had urged the Supreme Court to monitor the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) probe into the 2G spectrum allocation.
The 2G case cost then communications minister A. Raja his job and he finds himself in prison now, as also some executives of telecom firms.
Swamy had also asked the apex court to direct the CBI to probe the alleged role of Home Minister P. Chidambaram in the 2G allocation as the then finance minister.
Earlier, the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) had criticised Swamy’s article with its chief Wajahat Habibullah describing the article as “outrageous” and charged that it “spread enmity and incited hatred”.
The Harvard-educated economics scholar, in the article ‘How to wipe out Islamic terror’ published on July 17 in the DNA, had suggested to Indian Hindus to collectively respond to terror acts.
“We need a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the Islamic terrorist… If any Muslim acknowledges his or her Hindu legacy, then we Hindus can accept him or her as a part of the Brihad Hindu Samaj (greater Hindu society) which is Hindustan,” Swamy wrote in the July article.
“Others, who refuse to acknowledge this, or those foreigners who become Indian citizens by registration, can remain in India but should not have voting rights (which means they cannot be elected representatives),” he added in his edit page article.