Togadia’s <i>trishul</i>, Rajasthan’s double-edged sword

The middle prong of the iron weapon juts out some 6 inches and has extremely sharp edges. The two smaller prongs on either side can also be sharpened, and if plunged into a body would lead to severe injury if not death, said local district officials showing a specimen to this correspondent.

The menacing look of the weapon is heightened by the fact that it comes inside a perfectly made black holster that can be slung along the belt like a khukri or a pistol. It has a short black handle, akin to a dagger, which gives the wielder a firm grip of the weapon.

The Rajasthan government’s April 8 notification regulating the use of the weapon does not call it a trishul at all. More important, it does not ban the use of such weapons as traditional religious symbols.

The order notes: ‘‘…the state government is of the opinion that having regard to prevailing conditions in the state of Rajasthan, it is expedient in public interest that distribution, acquisition, possession or carrying of double or multi-bladed sharp or pointed weapons be regulated except in religious institutions as defined in Section 1 of the Religious Institutions, function and religious processions where such weapon is customarily used.’’

Pravin Togadia not only violated Section 144 and the Arms Act by distributing the weapons at a public meeting here on April 13 but unleashed his usual rabble-rousing tirades against Muslims as well as the Rajasthan government in his speech. The FIR lodged against him quotes portions of his speech, which exhorts the crowd ‘‘to raise your trishuls and pledge that you will worship Bhagwan Shankar and Ma Durga, that you will build the Ram temple, that you will destroy Pakistan and make India a Hindu rashtra.’’ He also raised the weapons in both hands and dared the Gehlot government to arrest him.

SP Saurabh Srivastava said it was wrong to say that Togadia was arrested under Section 121 A for ‘‘waging war against the state.’’ Section 120, IPC, does deal with waging, or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging of war, against the Government of India.

But Section 121A deals with ‘‘whoever within or without India conspires to commit any of the offences punishable by Section 121, or conspires to overawe, by means of criminal force or show of criminal force the Central Government or any state government.’’

The government’s charge against Togadia rested on the second clause — that he tried to overawe the government by ‘‘a show of criminal force’’. Detailed investigations carried out subsequent to Togadia’s arrest have only bolstered the government’s case, Srivastava said.

The ball, at the moment, is in the VHP’s court. It can go in appeal to a higher court and seek to get the order reversed. Otherwise, the case will come up for hearing at the district sessions court only on April 30, giving Togadia nearly another fortnight in the colonial era expanse of the Ajmer Central Jail.