Muzammil Pasha, senior Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) leader and prime accused in the August 2020 D.J. Halli violence case, who was released on bail recently, alleged that he and his party were falsely framed in the case. He claimed that he was helping the police control the violence when it erupted that night.
“As soon as I saw the defamatory post go viral on social media, I forwarded it to all senior police personnel alerting them to a possible communal flare-up,” said Mr. Pasha at a press conference on Thursday. The post had been uploaded on Facebook by Naveen P., the nephew of the local Congress MLA R. Akhanda Srinivasamurthy.
According to Mr. Pasha, when he went to the police station, the police were already in talks with some community leaders. “However, miscreants, many of them ganja addicts, started gathering outside the police station and started turning violent. They were not organised. The police asked me to address them, which I did. But the crowd did not come under control,” Mr. Pasha said.
‘Cops refused to lathicharge’
He also claimed that he requested the police to do a lathicharge, but they refused. “The police told me they had clear orders not to use force. Late in the night, I again requested them to do a lathicharge, which they refused,” he claimed.
He further alleged that he and several SDPI leaders had been working with police all night to control the violence, but suddenly at around 3 a.m., minutes before BJP Minister R. Ashok visited the spot, the police called SDPI leaders into the station and arrested them. “It was very clear that the police were under pressure and targeted us,” he alleged.
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