Jharkhand court denies anticipatory bail to Giriraj Singh

Ranchi, May 3 (IANS) A Jharkhand court Saturday denied anticipatory bail to Bihar BJP leader Giriraj Singh for his hate speech during election campaigning.

On April 29, a Deoghar court, while hearing the bail petition, suspended till May 3 the order for arresting Giriraj Singh.

Giriraj Singh will now move to the Jharkhand High Court against the Deoghar court's order.

The high court had given relief to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Friday by quashing the arrest warrant issued by a Bokaro court April 23.

Two FIRs were lodged against Giriraj Singh, one in Bokaro district and the other in Deoghar district, on the instructions of the Election Commission.

He is the BJP's Lok Sabha candidate from Nawada constituency in Bihar.

In his speech April 18 while campaigning in Jharkhand, the BJP candidate said: "Those who are opposing BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi are supporters of Pakistan."

A Bokaro police team went to Bihar's capital Patna to arrest him but did not find him at his residence.

A Patna court granted him anticipatory bail in another case relating to the hate speech.