‘Quoted out of context for political mileage’: Abu Azmi gets anticipatory bail in case filed for praising Aurangzeb

On Tuesday, the court permitted his anticipatory bail application, on conditions that he will not tamper with evidence and will appear before the investigating officer thrice this month and cooperate with the probe. The court directed him to execute a bond of Rs 20,000.

Azmi’s counsel Mobin Solkar submitted before the court that the FIR did not disclose any offence commited by Azmi nor had he made the statements out of malice to hurt and outrage religious sentiments. Solkar also submitted that Azmi had not spoken at a pre-scheduled interview, but had responded to questions put forward by the media spontaneously during an interaction with the press. He also submitted that the complainant in the case, a Shiv Sena party worker, had not produced the full transcript of the interaction with the press, but had selectively picked up a few statements and quoted them out of context in the FIR.

Azmi was suspended from the ongoing legislative assembly budget session for his statements.

“Perusal of the complete transcript of the applicant’s interviews would reveal that the applicant never made any derogatory or insulting remarks against Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj or any other Hindu King or Ruler,” the application stated. He further said that he had not said a single word to outrage the Hindu community and had no intention to hurt them.

The bail application said that Azmi had merely expressed his opinion and made some “positive statements” about Aurangzeb on the basis of what he had read about him from historical books. It added that the Azmi had released a video on March 4, where he stated that he had never said anything wrong against great national personalities, and if he had, he was withdrawing the statements.

The police had said that the probe in the case was underway.

A detailed order is yet to be made available.