publive-image

In 2007, Parvaz had moved the Allahabad High Court seeking registration of an FIR against Yogi Adityanath, who was then an MP from Gorakhpur, alleging that he gave a hate speech. In 2018, after the High Court allowed the UP government to not prosecute Adityanath — now the chief minister of UP — Parvaz filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the order.

Parvaz was arrested in September 2018 after a 40-year-old woman accused him and Mehmood alias Jumman Baba (66) of gangrape on June 3, 2018.

In her police complaint, the woman had alleged that she had gone to the house of Jumman Baba on June 3, 2018 for “seeking remedies” for her marital problems, when he took her to an isolated place and raped her at gunpoint along with “someone who Jumman called Parvez bhai”.

The district sessions court of Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh has convicted activist Parwez Parvaz, 65, in a 2018 gangrape case and sentenced him to life imprisonment along with another co-accused Mehmood.

Parvaz alleged that he has faced threats ever since he pressed charges against Yogi. He has allegedly been threatened with false criminal charges.

Yogi Adityanath was also arrested and sent to jail for 15 days in the same case in January 2007. In May 2017, the Uttar Pradesh government refused to give sanction to prosecution against Chief Minister in the case in the 2007 hate speech case. In 2018, The petitioners had then filed a petition in the Allahabad High Court challenging the UP government’s refusal to grant sanction to prosecute Adityanath in the hate speech case.

However, the Allahabad High Court had dismissed the writ petition filed by Parvaz against Yogi Adityanath after it allowed the UP government to not prosecute Adityanath.