FIR registered against Praveen Togadia

Pravin Togadia

The Bangalore city police have registered three criminal cases against Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Praveen Togadia and organisers of a Virat Hindu Samajotsava event for allegedly violating a prohibitory orders issued by the Bangalore City Police Commissioner MN Reddi on Sunday. Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and order) Alok Kumar said that three FIRs had been registered against Togadia and organizers of the Samajothsav in the Shankarapura police station for violating the commissioner’s orders on several fronts during the event at the National College grounds.

Cases have been booked under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code for violating rules and conducting the programme beyond the prescribed time limit; under Section 143 and 180 of IPC for playing a 12 minute video recording of a Togadia speech despite the police barring any speech by him at the event;  and under section 353 of the IPC for preventing police officers from discharging their duties when they tried to stop the broadcast of the video recording of the Togadia speech at the venue, police said.

The VHP had been given permission to conduct the event from 3 pm to 5 pm but they conducted the program from 3 pm to 8 pm. They also violated orders banning any kind of Togadia speech, police said. “We have booked three cases against the organisers with Togadia being an accused in one of the cases for the telecast of his speech at the venue,” the Deputy Commissioner of Police (south division)  B S Lokesh Kumar said.