Early this month, former UP Shia Waqf Board chairperson Wasim Rizvi renunciated Islam and did a Ghar Wapsi as Jitendra Narayan Singh Tyagi.
The Delhi High Court dismissed plea which sought permanent injunction on Jitendra Narayan Singh Tyagi’s book ‘Muhammed’. Petitioner Qamar Hasnain had also sought 2 crore rupees as damages to stop Shri Tyagi from doing any such thing in future.
While dismissing the plea, court of Justice Sanjeev Narula said, “Any injury or hurt to personal religious sentiments of the Plaintiff are not an actionable wrong under the law of torts. At best, a case may have been made under provisions of criminal law, which has certainly neither been pleaded nor would bestow any maintainability to the case before this Court.”
Petitioner Hasnain maintained that the book had hurt the religious feelings of Muslims and was written with an intention to create communal disharmony.
Earlier, many Islamists had declared bounties on Shri Tyagi for writing this book. The book is self-published and is available on his website.
Congress leader Rashed Khan had offered a bounty of 50 lakh rupees for whoever beheads Shri Tyagi. He had also offered all the legal help for one who beheads him. This came after another Congress leader from Hyderabad, Feroze Khan, had offered a bounty of 50 lakh rupees for beheading Shri Tyagi.
On December 7, Khan had reiterated his commitment to offer prize money saying “I stand by my words”. He is the secretary of Telangana Congress.
The Congress leadership had not taken any action against its leaders for offering cash prizes for beheading Shri Tyagi. In the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress leader from Uttar Pradesh Imran Masood had threatened to cut to pieces then Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
The Congress party did not take any action against Masood. On the contrary, he was rewarded with a Lok Sabha ticket.
Before quitting Islam, Shri Tyagi made many attempts to bring reform in the religion. This infuriated the Islamists and prize money was declared for beheading him.
In January 2018, Shri Tyagi had written letters to the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting them to abolish madrasas. He had said some of madrasas act as breeding grounds for terrorists.
This infuriated Bareilly-based Islamist outfit All India Faizan-e-Madina Council (AIFMC) so much that it announced a bounty of Rs 10,00,786 and a free Haj trip for anyone who brings them Shri Tyagi’s head.
“He (Shri Tyagi) poses a danger and could ruin the communal harmony and social fabric of the country. We demand the state government to immediately terminate his services as Shia Waqf Board president. If he doesn’t apologize for his statement, our organisation will behead him and we will award the person responsible with a cash prize as well as a free Haj trip,” Moeen Siddiqui Noori, head of the AIFMC, had said.
Advocating a population control law, Shri Tyagi had said in January last year “Some people believe that childbirth is a natural process and should not be interfered with. To give birth to more children like animals is harmful to society and country. It will be good for the country if a law is implemented for population control.”
In March this year, he had filed a petition in the Supreme Court requesting the court to remove 26 verses from the Quran which he said promoted violence and terrorism. He had argued that these 26 verses were not there in the original Quran and were added later. The Supreme Court had dismissed his petition.
Earlier, Shri Tyagi had released a Quran without these 26 verses. He had also requested the government to make teaching of the new Quran compulsory in madrasas. He supported many progressive ideas like the abolition of Triple Talaq which infuriated the maulanas. Multiple fatwas were issued against him.
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