Senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Purshottam Rupala has threatened that he will take top human rights activist Shabnam Hashmi, founder of NGO Anhad, to the court of law for “defaming” him. In a statement posted to Counterview, he has said, “Hashmi has leveled a very serious charge of forging the documents against me, which I deny. My letter to the Prime Minister was based on facts. I call upon Hashmi to retract her statement and issue an apology, immediately, failing which I will not hesitate to take a legal actions against her.”
Anhad was founded in the wake of the communal riots in Gujarat, and ever since 2003 it has been working with the victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots. Rupala had written a stinging letter to the Prime Minister in February this year, accusing her of carrying on her activities with foreign funds without following necessary legal procedure. Taking strong exception to Rupala's letter, Hashmi had said in a statement issued a few days backs that Rupala's letter to the PM was based on “forged documents to malign Anhad”.
Rupala's main objection to Hashmi and Anhad is their alleged “refusal” to declare before the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) about receipt of Euros 3580 from the Netherlands-based NGO Hivos. He says, “Hivos is the same organization where Justice Aftab Alam (retired) submitted a paper in October 2009 at London, where he criticized the Supreme Court for not addressing the cause of minorities properly and claimed that Indian laws treat Hindus and Muslims differently.”
Rupala claims, “It is the same organization which paid a huge amount to Teesta Setalvad in November 2009 and to Shabnam Hashmi also in the same financial year.” He adds, his facts are “purely based on the information available on Form FC6 for the year ending March 31, 2010 submitted by Anhad online to MHA, where the name of only one donor ie Oxfom India, is mentioned and the amount received on December 12, 2009 was shown as Rs 18,42,735.”
Rupala says,“It is proved beyond doubt that Anhad has not disclosed the name of Hivos in online submission of information in Form FC6 to the MHA and it seems that Form FC3 submitted to the MHA by Hashmi was to cover up the lapse on her part and to avoid any prosecution under the act for concealment of facts.” He adds, “I wrote to the PM on February 13, 2013 based on the information submitted by the MHA in reply to an RTI query. The original reply of MHA along with copies of Form FC 6 for the year ending March 31, 2010 and March 31, 2011 sent by MHA to the RTI activist are in my possession.”
Rupala further claims, “On perusal of FC6 forms, it is clear that the RTI section of the MHA was taken out the print of the FC6 forms on January 16, 2016 from the website of the Foreign Currency Regulation Act (FCRA) online services, and annexed along with the reply. The date and the URL are clearly printed on FC6 forms at the top and at the bottom.”
He adds, “Hence, Hashmi’s claim that there was no online filing of accounts in the year 2009-10 and the FC6 forms did not exists in 2009-10 and 2010-11 and Anhad did not file any online form for the year ending March, 31, 2010 is not only false but it is her calculated attempt to divert the attention from the real issue of her illegally using official bungalow of a Member Planning Commission and to malign and demeaning my image.”
The top BJP leader, who is known for his closeness to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, refers to THIS online link to prove his point:
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