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A Delhi court has ordered that an FIR to be registered against Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Delhi law minister Kapil Mishra for his alleged involvement in the 2020 North East Delhi riots. The court said there was enough material to investigate whether Mishra committed a cognisable offence.

The order came after Mohammad Ilyas moved the court. He had approached the police three times seeking a case against Mishra. Ilyas told Scroll he felt hopeful, but his lawyer Mehmood Pracha warned that the order might be stayed.

Mishra made a speech that allegedly incited violence against Muslims. The Delhi Police had opposed the plea, saying it was a conspiracy to frame Mishra. The violence, which erupted during anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests, left 53 people dead, most of them Muslims.
As part of a special series titled Delhi 2020, Scroll looked back at the violence and how the Modi government used it to tarnish the very idea of peaceful protest. Read on.

The futile, five-year struggle to lodge an FIR against Kapil Mishra

The Supreme Court has ordered the Prayagraj Development Authority, under the Uttar Pradesh government, to pay Rs 10 lakh each to six persons whose homes were illegally bulldozed in 2021. The court said the demolitions violated the right to shelter under Article 21 of the Constitution.

A bench of Justices Abhay S Okay and Ujjal Bhuyan said the “cases shock our conscience” and criticised the manner in which authorities pasted notices on the premises instead of delivering them personally or by speed post. “This affixing business must be stopped,” the court said.

The petitioners, including a lawyer and a professor, said their homes had been razed without due notice, after the police erroneously linked their land to gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed, who was killed in 2023.

The Supreme Court had previously criticised the Uttar Pradesh government for the demolitions, calling them “shocking and wrong”. The court reaffirmed that punitive demolitions are not permissible under Indian law. Read on.

Hindu groups in Britain have rejected a report claiming that extremists from the community is forming alliances with far-right groups in Europe over their “common hatred for Muslims”. The groups said that the report in British newspaper The Daily Mail was baseless and misleading.

The newspaper on Sunday claimed that British Hindu extremists had met with activists from far-right groups to promote “anti-Muslim campaigns”. It claimed that these extremists were “feared to be interfering in British elections by telling Hindus which parties to vote for and which to avoid”.

Responding to the report, Hindu group INSIGHT UK said it was filing a complaint with The Daily Mail and independent media regulator Independent Press Standards Organisation, The Times of India reported. Another Hindu organisation, Hindus for Labour, said that no credible Hindu organisation, had aligned itself with any right-wing British group. Read more.

A court in Punjab has sentenced Bajinder Singh a self-proclaimed Christian preacher from Chandigarh, to life imprisonment in a rape case. A woman had in 2018 accused Singh of luring her to his house in Sector 63 in the Mohali city under the pretext of helping her move abroad.

The woman claimed that Singh raped her at his home, recorded a video of it and threatened to post the video on social media if she did not agree to his demands. The preacher was arrested later that year, but was later released on bail.

A Mohali court on March 28 had convicted Singh for rape, punishment for voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation. He was sent to Patiala jail. Read more.

Madhya Pradesh’s Bharatiya Janata Party government on Tuesday imposed a liquor ban in 19 cities and gram panchayat areas of religious significance. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav described this as a “historic step towards de-addiction” and cited public faith linked to these places as the motivation for the ban.

Liquor shops and bars will shut within city limits of Ujjain, Omkareshwar, Maheshwar, and 16 other locations. The decision, approved by the Cabinet on January 24, also upheld a 5-km ban on liquor sales along the Narmada river, considered sacred in Hinduism.

In September, Yadav said the BJP government aimed to prohibit meat and liquor shops in religious towns. Shortly after becoming chief minister in December 2023, Yadav restricted the sale of meat and eggs in open areas. Read on.

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