Atishi Cleared By Court In Case Over Remarks, Delhi Minister Questions Probe

Delhi Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa has accused the Punjab government of shielding Aam Aadmi Party's Leader of Opposition Atishi following the clean chit to her by a Jalandhar court over a video from the Delhi assembly, where objectionable remarks were allegedly made about Sikh Guru Teg Bahadur.

"The words spoken in the Assembly are so objectionable that they cannot even be repeated. This is not a matter of politics, but an insult to ethics and religion," Sirsa said.

He also raised concern about the handling of the investigation, saying, "The same police that could not conduct a forensic investigation into their own SP's viral audio is now presenting a forensic report in this case without the original video."

"The so-called forensic investigation conducted without the original video, without an IT expert, and without a voice sample is completely wrong and misleading," he told reporters.

AAP Responds 

AAP Delhi State President Saurabh Bharadwaj countered Sirsa's claims, citing the ruling of the Jalandhar court. "The court has accepted that Atishi did not utter the word 'Guru' in the video," he said.

It has ordered that such videos "be removed from all social media platforms and directed that a list be prepared of those who circulated them online," Bhardwaj said. "The court also observed that the language used by BJP ministers Kapil Mishra and Manjinder Singh Sirsa could potentially incite communal tensions," he added.

Regarding the forensic report, Bharadwaj said, "Based on auditory and spectrographic examination and metadata analysis, it was concluded that Atishi did not utter the word 'Guru' in the video shared by Kapil Mishra. The court accepted this finding and also noted the potential for communal unrest caused by inflammatory language."

Jalandhar Court Clears Atishi 

A Jalandhar court directed the immediate removal and blocking of an allegedly manipulated video involving former Delhi Chief Minister Atishi on Thursday, observing that its circulation posed a serious risk to public order and religious harmony in Punjab.

The video clip from the Delhi Assembly proceedings, which had gone viral on social media, allegedly showed Atishi making objectionable remarks about the ninth Sikh Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur. 

But following a technical and forensic examination, the court held that the clip was doctored and deliberately altered to give a misleading impression.