The Telangana High Court has rejected the appeal of actress Sai Pallavi to allow her to defy the notice issued by Hyderabad’s Sultanbazar police for her statements on the Kashmir genocide. On Thursday, a bench headed by Telangana High Court Justice Lalitha Kanneganti rejected the plea brought by Sai Pallavi.
#Telangana High Court has rejected actor Sai Pallavi’s petition seeking to set aside the notice issued by Sultanbazar police of Hyderabad over her comments on the Kashmir genocide#SaiPallavi (@Journo_Abdul) https://t.co/yIuQ1lsWgM
— IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) July 8, 2022
Sai Pallavi argued in her plea that the complaint made against her was illegitimate and arbitrary. However, the Telangana High Court bench led by Justice Lalitha denied to interfere and ordered her to appear before the police.
The police issued the notice in response to a complaint filed by Akhil, a Bajrang Dal leader, who alleged that she made statements in an interview equating cow vigilantism to genocide in Kashmir. On June 21, she was summoned to appear before the police.
Background
On June 13, a segment of actress Sai Pallavi’s interview with Great Andhra went viral on social media sites, in which she equated the horrible genocide of Kashmiri Hindus to isolated incidences of violence against cattle smugglers in an attempt to claim she is ‘politically neutral.’
Pallavi stated in the interview that she feels the deaths of Kashmiri Hindus and the attack on Muslim cattle smugglers were the same and that both should not have occurred. Speaking about The Kashmir Files, a film by filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, Pallavi said, “In Kashmir Files movie, they showed how Kashmiri Pandits were killed.” She drew a parallel between the killings of Kashmiri Hindus, the brutal attacks on the Hindu community in the valley and the attack on cattle smugglers by locals.
She said, “But recently in covid time, some Muslim guy taking a cow in a vehicle was attacked and forced to chant Jai Shri Ram slogans. So if you are talking about religious conflict, what is the difference between the two incidents? That happened then, this happened now. What is the difference? The thing is, we should stay fair and just. If we are not good humans, we won’t be just. If you are just and stand with justice, all will be ‘neutral’ around you.”
Sai Pallavi attempted to contrast the genocide of an entire ethnic community, which was carried out by Islamists in the valley with explicit help and funding from Pakistan, with isolated incidents of violence in which cattle smugglers (most of whom were Muslims who slaughtered the animals for meat) stealing cows were stopped and beaten by locals.
Cattle smuggling is an organised crime that operates throughout India, with the victims being impoverished farmers who rely on cattle for a living.
