Rebel AAP MLA Kapil Mishra. (File Photo)A “poem” by rebel AAP MLA Kapil Mishra on Twitter, which advocates attacking “traitors” inside their homes and dragging them onto the streets, has prompted a senior official in the Centre’s Department of Telecommunications to shoot a letter to the Delhi Police Chief.
In an over two-minute video posted on Twitter Sunday, Mishra said: “Modi ji tum unko dekho jo dushman hai seema paar. Baaki janata nipta degi ghar mein chhipe hue gaddar.” He then invokes the Pulwama terror attack and names “Kamal Haasan, Barkha (Dutt), (Prashant) Bhushan, Kavita (Krishnan), Shehla (Rashid), (Navjot Singh) Sidhu and Naseeruddin (Shah)”.
He also lashed out at “people trying to paint stone pelters as innocent”; “those who hate it when the Tricolour is hoisted in Aligarh Muslim University”; those who “shout Pakistan zindabad on Facebook”; those who seek to “spread lies about the PM”; and those who “distribute sweets after a terror attack”.
He wraps up the poem with: “Ab ki baari unke ghar mein ghus kar karna hoga vaar. Kheech nikalo beech sadak par ghar mein chhipe huye gaddaar.”
On Monday, Ashish Joshi, controller of communications in DoT, wrote a letter to Delhi Police chief Amulya Patnaik: “Mr Kapil Mishra has circulated a highly incendiary video provoking people to attack some citizens. The video violates IPC and IT Act.”
Speaking to The Indian Express, Joshi said, “I was tagged by Barkha Dutt on a post about this video on Twitter. When I watched it, I thought it was very offensive and inflammatory. It’s social media and in some way connected to the Telecom sector. I am doing my duty as a civil servant of bringing it to the notice of the Delhi CP. It violates IPC and the IT Act. It is now up to the CP if he wants to take action.” Joshi, a 1992-batch officer of the Indian Post and Telecommunication Accounts and Finance Service, said the video violated IPC sections 153A, (promoting enmity) and that he had sent the police chief’s office an email and fax.
On Twitter, he further wrote: “All those calling me names, remember that I am a son of an Army veteran. My family has had five members in Armed forces. So do not pontificate me on patriotism and nationalism.”
Delhi Police spokesperson Anil Mittal said the police chief’s office “has not yet received the complaint” so far.
AAP’s chief spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj said: “Mishra’s derogatory statements cater to the BJP and its troll army. His actions are aided and abetted by BJP. He is seen going around with
BJP MLAs and MPs. He had sat
on a dharna inside the Delhi Secretariat with them last year. That is why we believe Delhi Police will take no action against him. As for AAP, we have no contact with him ever since he was sacked as a minister for irregularities in the Delhi Jal Board.”
When contacted, Mishra hit back, alleging that “Joshi works on the agenda of anti-nationals and has misused his letter-head. He is not supposed to monitor social media. I am going to complain against him to the Uttarakhand government, as he is in the Dehradun office. I stand by every word I’ve written in the poem”.
He also defended his video: “How can a poem incite violence? What about my freedom of speech? When I say, ‘unke ghar mein ghus kar karna hoga vaar, kheech nikalo beech sadak par’, I mean that they should be exposed, named, shamed. I don’t mean they should be beaten up.”
BJP-SAD MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa said: “Kapil is only taking about identifying traitors of the nation; there’s nothing wrong in identifying people who work against the nation.”
