The Supreme Court on Monday directed Jitendra Narayan Tyagi, an accused in the Haridwar hate speech case, to surrender before September 5, Bar and Bench reported.

Tyagi, the former chief of the Shia Waqf Board, has been out on bail that was given to him on medical grounds. He had converted to Hinduism and changed his name from Wasim Rizvi.

Tyagi was arrested in January for calling upon Hindus to buy weapons to commit genocide against Muslims. He made the statement while speaking at a “dharam sansad”, or religious parliament, held in Haridwar between December 17 and December 19.

He approached the Supreme Court after his bail plea was rejected in March by the Uttarakhand High Court.

On Monday, a bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and BV Nagarathna was hearing Tyagi’s plea, seeking to extend his interim bail.

Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, appearing for Tyagi, requested for bail extension saying that his client is old.

“He isn’t a senior citizen, he is 51,” the bench said. “He should spend at least seven days in custody.”

The bench also noted that Tyagi cannot be granted relief as he has several cases against him.

Haridwar hate speech case

Two first information reports have been filed in the Haridwar hate speech case.

The first FIR was filed on December 23 in which Tyagi was the only person named.

On December 26, the Uttarakhand Police added the names of Annapurna, also known as Pooja Shakun Pandey, and priest Dharamdas Maharaj to the FIR. Annapurna is the general secretary of the Hindutva organisation Hindu Mahasabha.

On January 1, the names of Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati and seer Sagar Sindhu Maharaj were added to the FIR.

At the December event, Saraswati, the head priest of Ghaziabad’s Dasna Devi temple, had urged Hindus to pick up weapons as the “economic boycott” of Muslims will not work. He was arrested and was later granted bail in this case on February 7.

On January 2, a second first information report was filed against 10 persons. Some of the accused persons named in the FIR are event organisers Dharamdas, Parmananda, Annapurna, Anand Swaroop, Ashwini Upadhyay, Suresh Chahwan and Prabodhanand Giri and Tyagi.