Rights Groups Demand Action Against Karnataka VHP Leader Sharan Pumpwell For Communal Hate Speech

Representatives of about 14 organizations, including women’s organisations and civil rights organizations have filed a complaint with the Director-General of Police in Bengaluru against the communal hate speech of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Sharan Pumpwell. 

The complaint demands that an FIR be registered against him and that the police initiate criminal action against Pumpwell immediately.

Pumpwell had threatened to orchestrate violence against the Muslim community in the coming days. “The community has been shielding anti-nationals and supporting love jihad. In the coming days – a campaign will be started & it could result in violence,” he told reporters in Mangaluru.

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Calling his statements a “blatant demonization and dehumanization of the Muslim community”, the complaint contended that “while Karnataka has witnessed a spate of communal incidents over the last few years, coastal Karnataka has been particularly communalised, with hate speeches becoming the order of the day.”

“Pumpwell’s hate speech needs to be seen in the context of various similar instances of hate speech across the country. In Delhi, there have been open and brazen calls for genocide of the Muslim community in the presence of police and media,” the complaint read. 

According to the complaint, Pumpwell’s speech “unmistakably constitutes the commission of several offences under the Indian Penal Code, 1860, including offences under Sections 153A,153B, 295A, 298 and 505(2).”

Pumpwell is the former Bajrang Dal State president, with a history of issuing threats against Muslims and enjoys political patronage from the state government.

In a leaked video last year, then Karnataka Home Minister and now Chief Minister Basavaraj S Bommai was heard assuring Sharan Pumpwell and other Hindutva members that cases filed against them will be dropped. “We will remove (whatever) cases filed against you,” he had said.