Asaduddin Owaisi says video of him edited to mislead, to ‘distract from Haridwar meet’

As AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi said his party would file an FIR over the hate speeches made at a religious meeting in Haridwar, a video was circulated of him allegedly making threatening remarks. On Friday, Owaisi said the video, shared among others by BJP leader Shehzad Poonawalla, had taken just 1 minute of a 45-minute speech given by him to convey the wrong impression that he was trying to spread violence and said it was meant to distract from the Haridwar meeting.

Tweeting two videos of his speech, made in Kanpur on December 12, he said, “I did not incite violence or give threats… As you can see… I was talking about police atrocities in Kanpur and addressing such cops who think they have immunity to violate people’s liberties because of Modi-Yogi… I said do not confuse our silence for acquiescence.”

In order to distract from #HaridwarGenocidalMeet, a clipped 1 min video is being circulated from 45 min speech I gave in Kanpur. I’ll set the record straight:

1. I did not incite violence or give threats. I talked about POLICE ATROCITIES Here’s the full video in TWO PARTS [Cont] pic.twitter.com/buZWZmVNLa

— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) December 24, 2021

On those drawing a connection between what he said and the speeches made at the Haridwar ‘Dharam Sansad’, over which a case of promoting enmity has been filed, Owaisi said that, at the Haridwar meeting, “majoritan organisations have called for #genocide”. “The conversation cannot shift from the fact that people are openly calling for violence while the govt of the day is complicit.”

Asked about the speech by The Indian Express, Owaisi refused to talk about it, while saying that the meeting at Haridwar had given a call for “genocide of Muslims”. “One of the speakers even said he wanted to kill our former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. How can it be justified? It’s in a BJP-ruled state that it happened. How can you justify it? It’s an open call for genocide of Muslims.”

In the videos Owaisi posted, he says: “At Kanpur Dehat Rasoolabad Police Station, an 80-year-old elderly person called Mohd Rafiq had his beard pulled and was urinated upon. The person who did this was an SI, Gajendra Pal Singh. Is this your izzat (decency)? You treat an 80-year-old like this? If this is true, it’s not a shame but we feel pained that you saw a beard and thought you would pull it. Why do you hate our beards? You do this to an 80-year-old? I want to tell those policemen that remember my words, Yogi will not be CM forever, Modi will not be PM forever… We Muslims might be silent now due to the exigencies of the times, but remember that we are never going to forget your atrocities… Allah, with his might, will destroy you. We will always remember. Times will change, then who will come to save you? When Yogi goes back to his mutt, Modi goes to the mountains, he may start living there, then who will come? We won’t forget, remember that… That a Muslim autorickshaw driver was attacked by Bajrang Dal rioters as his child tried to save him. Didn’t it happen right here in Kanpur?… That child is like my child. I will ensure that her pain is not forgotten… And if you believe that you can hit us with lathis, people saw on TV that a man is carrying his innocent child, and police personnel are hitting him with sticks. The man is pleading that his child will get injured… A man is sitting in a car, and a policeman says, are you trying to be a hero, I will show you… If today you are threatening people due to the clout of your uniform, pretending to be hero, tomorrow, you will be zero.”

In his tweet, Owaisi said: “It’s an essential part of my faith to believe that Allah does not allow injustice… Assuring people of Allah’s justice gives hope… Why is it offensive to remember how police have treated Muslims in UP? We cannot forget the oppression that was meted out to Anas, Suleiman, Asif, Faisal, Altaf, Akhlaq, Qasim, and hundreds of others.”

Orthodox Muslim elements frustrated: Waseem Rizvi

Waseem Rizvi, the former Uttar Pradesh Shia Waqf Board chairman who is the only one named in the FIR filed over the speeches made at the Haridwar meeting, released a video statement Friday saying the case against him was a sign of “the frustration of the militant/orthodox elements within the Muslim community”. Dressed in saffron robes with a tilak on his forehead, Rizvi, who recently converted to Hinduism, said: “They realise that their fraud has been exposed. It’s not a hate speech to speak the truth. Hindus are coming together, which is why the parties doing politics over Muslim votes are disturbed. To defeat the BJP, they are trying to again divide the Hindus, because they know that if they don’t succeed, they will cease to exist.”