The Bengaluru police said that anti-national slogans were prima facie not raised at the event organized by non-government organization Amnesty International recently.
The New Indian Express reports that the police, after verifying the unedited video footage of the event observed that "Azadi" slogans were raised by a group towards the end of the event. They did not, however, find anti-national slogans being raised at the event.
“In the video footage, there were three instances when people had verbal altercations. However, though there were slogans with the word ‘Azadi’, they were not said in the context of the army or the country,” an official was quoted as saying.
ACP Charan Reddy confirmed to The News Minute that the police have sought help from language experts as the participants spoke in Kashmiri, Urdu, Hindi and English.
“Since a number of participants spoke in Urdu and Kashmiri, we need to get them translated first and then verify whether they raised anti-national slogans. But prima facie, we have found nothing of that sort,” he said.
The unedited video footage has been sent for forensic examination.
In the event, "Broken Families" conducted by the human rights organisation on August 13, it was alleged that few participants had raised anti-India slogans. The issue soon escalated, after BJP’s student wing ABVP carried out protests in the city, demanding that the organizers be charged for sedition.
A case of sedition, rioting, and promoting enmity between group was subsequently filed based on the complaint of an ABVP member. The police had, earlier this week said that there was no substantial evidence for sedition charges against the organisation.
BJP State President BS Yeddyurappa had also demanded an NIA probe in to the matter.
A senior police official told TNIE that the complaint filed against Amnesty by ABVP member Jayaprakash was based on the versions of two other members who had participated in the event.
The officer adds that in their statement to the police, the two ABVP members admitted that they did not understand what the participants said as they spoke in Kashmiri, Urdu and English, but "their body language and behaviour seemed that they were speaking something against the nation."