A former MP on Thursday urged the Supreme Court to start contempt proceedings against Haryana’s chief secretary and police chief for allegedly allowing Rightwing groups to deliver “hate speeches” and disrupt the Friday namaz in Gurgaon for the past several months.

Petitioner Mohammad Adeeb cited the 2018 apex court judgment in Tehseen S. Poonawalla vs Union of India that passed directives to check hate speech and said district superintendents of police had a duty to prevent hate speeches and act against any perpetrators.

“It is submitted that the contemnors (chief secretary Sanjeev Kaush and director-general of police P.K. Agrawal) herein have failed to comply with the aforesaid directions,” the petition from Adeeb, a former Independent Rajya Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh, says.

It regrets the “serious inaction of the State machinery in taking effective measures for prevention of such incidents in Gurugram, Haryana, where recently there has been an admitted spurt in communal incidents over place of prayers used by one community.”

Muslims of Gurgaon, which lacks sufficient mosques, were allowed to offer Friday namaz at 106 designated open-air spaces — a number whittled down to 37 in 2018 and 29 last month after protests from Hindutva groups and residents’ bodies.

The protesters used loudspeakers and played Hindu devotional songs during namaz, or performed puja at these spots at the time of namaz.

Last week, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar said namaz in open spaces “will not be tolerated” and withdrew consent to Friday prayers at the designated open-air sites in Gurgaon.

Adeeb’s petition says that in “recent months, there has been a constant rise in incidents revolving around the said Friday prayers at the behest of certain identifiable hooligans, with no local support, who portray themselves falsely in the name of religion and seek to create an atmosphere of hatred and prejudice against one community across the city”.

“This nefarious design is being given effect to by propagation and dissemination of hateful content through social media platforms spreading false narratives, terming the performance of Friday namaz… permitted by the appropriate authorities… as being illegal and in a manner of some sort of encroachment,” the petition, filed through advocate Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi, says.

It adds that residents of a particular Gurgaon locality had on April 9 this year complained to Sushant Lok police station against a man named Dinesh Bharti, apparently a member of a vigilante group, Bharat Mata Vahini. The residents alleged that Bharti was one of the key perpetrators of namaz disruptions.

On September 29 and 30, the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind complained to the Gurgaon police commissioner and the divisional commissioner that on September 17 and 24, some people had disturbed Jumma namaz at a designated spot.

“Despite the above complaints there remained severe inaction at the hands of the contemnors and the incidents grew both in intensity and number every Friday at various locations in Gurugram,” the petition says.

On October 22, “such divisive elements of the society, portraying themselves as members of far-Right organisations, gathered at locations of namaz in Sector 12A and Sector 47, Gurugram, while a few Muslims were offering their Friday prayers. The namaz being performed was thus sought to be disrupted by raising slogans, playing hymns and chants on loudspeakers, etc,” the petition says.