Pune: Satyaki Ashok Savarkar, a grand-nephew of Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, on Thursday alleged that there was an inordinate delay by Pune police in the probe of his criminal defamation complaint against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The probe should be expedited, he told reporters here after police on April 2 sought more time from a local court to submit a report on the complaint.
Satyaki Savarkar filed a complaint in the court last April, accusing the Congress leader of making false claims about the late revolutionary in a speech in London in March 2023. Gandhi claimed in his speech that Savarkar had written in a book that he and five to six of his friends once beat up a Muslim man and he (Savarkar) felt happy, the complaint alleged.
No such incident had ever taken place, and Savarkar never wrote any such thing anywhere, it said, terming Gandhi's allegation as fictitious, false and malicious. Speaking at a press conference here on Thursday, Satyaki Savarkar said the court had earlier asked Vishrambaug police to verify the proof submitted by him, and file a report by May 27. In such cases, the court generally asks for preliminary probe and then decides whether there are enough grounds to register a First Information Report (FIR).
He had submitted a YouTube link of Gandhi's London speech as proof, Satyaki said. "The court issued the orders in January this year, but so far nothing concrete has been happened in the probe. Why is there a delay? Is it that YouTube is not responding to the police's query, or are the police under pressure?" asked Savarkar, adding that he expected police to file their probe report in time.
His lawyer Sangram Kolhatkar said that Vishrambaug police on April 2 sought more time for submitting a report, claiming that YouTube did not give them required information. As per the order copy provided by Savarkar's lawyer, the court noted that information was awaited from YouTube, and police had sought a date after the Lok Sabha elections as they would be busy with security duties during the polls. Time was being granted accordingly, the court said, though the order did not mention the next date. Satyaki, meanwhile, also said he was appealing to Maharashtra Home Minister Devendra Fadnavis to look into the issue so that V D Savarkar got justice.
