New Delhi, Aug 29: Team Anna member Kiran Bedi today advised Swami Agnivesh to file an FIR if he felt that the controversial video in which he purportedly asked someone to act tough with Anna Hazare was fake but the religious leader said his spiritual values did not allow him to do so.
A video surfaced on ‘youtube' yesterday showing Agnivesh, a close associate of Hazare, purportedly telling a person alleged to be a Union Minister that the government should act tough with the fasting Gandhian.
“Our Core Committee said that we should ask Swami what he has to say about it. But later I saw him saying on TV that the audio (in the video) is false. I advised him to have an investigation,” Bedi said.
“I neither want to be a judge nor prosecutor in this case. I have advised him. I have asked him to immediately file an FIR in this matter and get the matter investigated just as Shanti and Prashant Bhushan did (in the CD issue),” she said.
Agnivesh on his part claimed that the video footage was “doctored and concocted” and part of a smear campaign against him and denied he was talking to Union Minister Kapil Sibal.
Asked whether he would approach police or court on the issue, Agnivesh told PTI that he does not want to approach police as his spiritual values do not allow him to do.
“My convictions are borne out of my spiritual values. I do not want to go to police. When someone attacked me in Ahmedabad during a meeting on Anna Hazare's campaign, I asked police not to report it and I forgave him,” he said.
Bedi had yesterday accused Agnivesh of being “absolutely unethical”. She said the footage has “shocked us all and we are very uncomfortable” with it. PTI
