Savarkar grandnephew asserts Savarkar did not hate Muslims in Pune court

Satyaki Savarkar, the grandnephew of Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, testified in a Pune court on Tuesday that his granduncle never hated Muslims, directly contradicting statements allegedly made by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The testimony came during cross-examination in a criminal defamation case Satyaki filed against Gandhi over a 2023 speech in London. The case centers on Gandhi's alleged remarks during that speech, which Satyaki claims falsely portrayed Vinayak Savarkar as an extreme hater of Muslims and a mob lyncher. During Tuesday's proceedings before Judicial Magistrate Amol Shinde, Gandhi's advocate, Milind D. Pawar, asked Satyaki to identify the exact defamatory words from the speech. Satyaki recounted a passage in which Gandhi allegedly stated that Savarkar and five or six friends had assaulted a Muslim man and found the act pleasurable. "By these words, Vinayak Savarkar was portrayed as an extreme hater of Muslims and as a mob lyncher," Satyaki told the court. He then asserted, "Savarkar never hated Muslims. Rather, in his writings, he showed the ways and means for their progress.