BJP MP Tejasvi Surya booked for allegedly making false claims on farmer’s suicide
The MP from Bengaluru south claimed that a farmer died by suicide after his land was ‘taken over by Waqf’.
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The Karnataka Police on Thursday registered a first information report against Bharatiya Janata Party MP Tejasvi Surya for allegedly falsely claiming that a farmer died by suicide after his land was taken over by the Waqf Board, reported ANI.
In a now-deleted post on X, Surya had claimed that the farmer, Rudrappa Channappa Balikai, died by suicide after his land was “taken over by Waqf”. He had also blamed Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and minister BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan for causing distress among the farmers of Karnataka.
The Haveri superintendent of police later clarified that Balikai died by suicide in January 2022 due to loan burdens and crop loss.
“His father had given a statement to the police probing that case that Rudrappa had taken loans of ₹7 Lakh and suffered extensive crop damage due to excessive rains, pushing him to take the extreme step,” said the police official, according to The Hindu.
Along with Surya, editors of two Kannada portals – Kannada Duniya and Kannada News – that had published claims were also booked.
The three have been booked under Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita section 353(2), which deals with the offence of publishing or circulating false information.
After the police’s clarification about Balikai’s death, Surya said that he would no longer rely on the source that reported...
