Mangaluru police has banned the entry of Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s president Pravin Togadia in the city. Mangaluru City Police Commissioner, M Chandra Sekhar has issued prohibitory orders against VHP head to prevent him from attending any meeting in the Mangaluru Police Commissionerate limits, reported Bangalore Mirror.
According to the police, they had reliable information that the Togadia would be in Mangaluru to attend meetings and hence the order was been issued under Section 144(3) CrPC for seven days from January 18 to 20. Police took this step keeping in mind that his speeches are provocative and can disturb the peace in the city, reported BM.
Members of Bajrang Dal and VHP clarified that Togadia, who was to land in the city airpot on Wednesday ,was not coming to Mangaluru for any public meet and was to travel to Sringeri to meet the seer on Thursday.
Sharan Pumpwell, president of Bajrang Dal was quoted by BM saying,“We thought of utilizing this opportunity to invite him for a `Baitak' which was only for organization members and not the public at Sanghaniketan. Unfortunately, a ban has been imposed.”
“This measure by the district administration is only to favour the other community, as Dr Zakir Naik was banned from entering Mangaluru. This is like curbing fundamental rights,” he added.
Seif Sulthan, founder, Hope Foundation, and a management trainer said that the administration was trying to play it safe.
“Looks like the district administration is trying to play safe. There should be clear guidelines on the content that the speakers would speak. A multi-faith approach is important. For this the district administration must set up a committee of representatives from all communities and whenever a leader is approached to address the gathering, an invite should come through this committee. This would mean that people from all communities are involved in the programme and the speakers too would be careful when they address the gathering. A smart city will hap pen when there is peace and when there is peace only will development also take place,” he said.
On December 28, Mangaluru police had banned the entry of televangelist and Islam scholar Dr. Zakir Naik, who was to attend a convention in the city. Around the same time, the city police had said that he might extend the order to ban Pravin Togadia’s entry too.
This is an aggregated report from Bangalore Mirror