Case Against Tejasvi Surya For Misleading Claim Over Farmer's Suicide

The Haveri Police station in Karnataka registered an FIR against Bharatiya Janata Party MP Tejasvi Surya for a false claim that a farmer in the district died by suicide after having his land claimed by Waqf board.

According to the FIR registered on Thursday, Tejasvi Surya claimed that a farmer, identified as Rudrappa Channappa Balikai died by suicide after he found out that his land was "taken over by Waqf" and blamed Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and minister BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan have "unleashed catastrophic effects in Karnataka" in a post on X.

The post has since been deleted by Mr Surya which also mentioned a news report by a Kannada paper.

The Superintendent of Police in Haveri also issued a clarification that the claim on the reason for the suicide is false.

"The news shared is false. No such incident reported. The farmer mentioned here, Rudrappa Channappa Balikai suicide case was reported on 06/01/2022 and it was reported to be due to loan and crop loss. Case was registered u/s 174 CrPC in Adur PS. Final report was already submitted," read the post.

The BJP MP further said that he would no longer rely on the source which reported it.

"Thanks for the information. The tweet stands deleted. I will henceforth not rely on the news agency that reported it. Given the rampant amount of WAQF conversion notices to 1000s of farmers across the State, one is easily led to believe such outcomes," read a post by the MP.

The Waqf land and properties row in the state has intensified in the recent days, with the Joint Parliamentary Committee Chairman on Waqf Amendment Bill, Jagdambika Pal also visiting various districts and meeting farmers' organisations in Huballi, Vijayapura and other districts, accompanied by Tejasvi Surya.

Mr Pal also announced that a fact-finding report would be presented in the upcoming winter session of Parliament.

"We will submit the report in the upcoming winter session of Parliament," Mr Pal stated to ANI, adding that he was in Karnataka to meet with farmers after receiving an invitation from BJP MP Tejasvi Surya.

The BJP has alleged that Waqf designations were added to land records for 44 properties in Indi and Chadachan taluks of Vijayapura district without proper notification, following a meeting between Karnataka Minister Zameer Ahmed Khan and district officials.

However, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah announced that he has instructed officials to stop issuing notices to farmers and to withdraw those already issued.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)