Hate is hate, Mr Owaisi: Akbaruddin Owaisi is a repeat hate speech offender. Why should different standards apply?
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MP Asaduddin Owaisi's younger brother, Akbaruddin Owaisi, is at it again — giving communal speeches.
Coming from the controversy-laden MLA, this is perhaps no surprise.
What is surprising though are allegations of the Karimnagar police apparently trying to protect him.
But the police has been foiled by the magistrate court of Karimnagar in Telangana.
The court has now directed three town police stations to register a case against Akbaruddin Owaisi under Section 153A — promoting enmity between different groups of religion, race, place of birth, residence and language — of the India Penal Code, and under Sections 153B and 506.
What got Akbaruddin into trouble is a speech he delivered on July 23, in which he accused the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of killing Muslims in the country, and claimed, "The RSS people were yet to recover from his '15 minutes' speech which he had delivered in 2012."
In his controversial remarks made in 2012, Akbaruddin had reportedly said that if the police were to be removed for 15 minutes, a minority group would annihilate members of the majority community.
In 2013, Akbaruddin had to spend time behind bars for making communal speeches one after the other. Despite the provocative July 23 speech now, which certainly has the potential of stoking communal tensions again, the Karimnagar police chose to overlook the issue.
It finally took an advocate, reportedly affiliated to the BJP, to persuade the court to initiate action against Akbaruddin.
A simple search for Akbaruddin on YouTube will throw up the many instances where he has reportedly indulged in hate speech, in full knowledge of its implications.
Despite court raps and spending a brief period in jail, Akbaruddin has apparently chosen not to care about the law of the land and that makes him a repeat offender. The law is stricter for repeat offenders, and so it should be for Akbaruddin this time.
And before whataboutery takes off, let's understand this plain and simple — anybody making provocative speeches, inciting people to indulge in violence, is guilty before the law. It must treat them equally. It shouldn't matter whether the person hails from the minority community or the majority, it shouldn't matter if the person belongs to the ruling party or the opposition.
He could be a commoner. He could also be a celebrity.
AIMIM has to stop playing the double game of Asaduddin talking as a moderate, progressive, urbane Muslim and Akbaruddin, at the same time, stoking up raw communal passions.
It is incumbent upon Asaduddin to speak up on the speeches that his younger sibling is delivering. Akbaruddin is not a private citizen after all. He is an AIMIM MLA. As his brother and his party chief, therefore, the senior Mr Owaisi has some explaining to do.