Hate speech cases: Azhari gets bail in Junagadh case, arrested by Kutch cops
The Local Crime Branch (LCB) of Junagadh district police did not seek extension of the 38-year-old cleric’s custody before the local court but opposed Azhari's bail plea, saying probe was still on.
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Mufti Salman Azhari at Rajkot jail on Wednesday. Express A Junagadh court on Wednesday granted bail to Mumbai-based cleric Mufti Salman Azhari and two others as their one-day police remand in a hate speech case ended on Wednesday. However, Azhari was arrested by Kutch (East) police later in the day in another hate speech case from the Rajkot Central Jail, where he was brought after being produced in Junagadh court.
The Local Crime Branch (LCB) of Junagadh district police did not seek extension of the 38-year-old cleric’s custody before the local court but opposed Azhari’s bail plea, saying probe was still on. It also said that it was in the process of obtaining details of Rs 52 lakh deposited in the bank account of Al-Amaan Education and Welfare Trust run by Azhari and may need his custody in future.
However, the court granted bail to Azhari as well as Yousuf Malek and Azim Odedara, also arrested in the same case on Monday. While Malek is a Junagadh-based builder who had sought police permission for the event organised under the aegis of Al Azim Charitable Trust on January 31, Odedara is the president of the trust. It was at this event that Azhari delivered the alleged hate speech.
“The court, however, sent Azhari to judicial custody after he could not fulfil bail conditions, including depositing his passport, immediately,” Inspector J J Patel, in charge of Junagadh LCB, said.
While Malek and Odedara were sent to Junagadh district jail till the time they complete their bail formalities, Azhari was brought to the central jail in Rajkot. From there, he was arrested by a team Kutch (East) LCB after it secured a transit remand from the Junagadh court.
“Our team is bringing the accused to Kutch and he will be arrested formally,” Kutch (East) police SP Sagar Bagmar said.
A case of hate speech was registered against Azhari and Mohammadkhan Mor, president of Gulshane Mohamadi Trust, at Sama Samakhiyali police station of Kutch (East) on Tuesday. The police said that Azhari had delivered a hate speech in Samakhiyali hours before one he delivered in Junagadh on January 31. “A local court granted us Mor’s two-day custody on Wednesday,” Bagmar said.
Kutch (East) LCB said that Mor, who runs an educational institute in Samakhiyali, had organised and sought police protection for the religious event where Azhari delivered the alleged hate speech.
Junagadh LCB said that Azhari is a native of Hooghly district in West Bengal. He came to Mumbai in 2017. “He is son of a maulana and came to Mumbai to serve a maulana at a mosque. Investigation has revealed that he started delivering sermons at public events after the Covid-19 pandemic and started becoming popular… During interrogation, he denied having made a hate speech. He insisted that he did not mean what his words are being made out to mean.”
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