New Delhi: A special court in Hyderabad on Wednesday acquitted All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Akbaruddin Owaisi in two cases related to hate speeches that he had allegedly delivered in 2012.The court was hearing two cases against Owaisi, the AIMIM’s floor leader in the Telangana Legislative Assembly, for speeches delivered at Nizamabad on December 8, 2012 and Nirmal on December 22, 2012. Both towns are now in Telangana but were then part of the united Andhra Pradesh state.In Nirmal, Owaisi made the infamous comment about “removing the police for 15 minutes off the streets”, hinting that there would be communal clashes. He was arrested in January 2013 in connection with the case and spent 40 days in jail. He was subsequently granted conditional bail.Akbaruddin is the younger brother of AIMIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi.The special sessions court for trial of MPs/MLAs, which had earlier posted the matter for judgment on Tuesday after completion of arguments by defence and prosecution, had deferred the verdict to Wednesday.According to Siasat, Owaisi’s counsel M.A. Azeem said the prosecution did not have sufficient evidence to prove the charges against the AIMIM leader.PTI reported that judge K. Jaya Kumar, who pronounced the verdict, observed that there was not sufficient evidence to prove the cases against the accused and gave him the benefit of the doubt.However, the judge orally told Akbaruddin not to repeat “this type of provocative speech in future” and also not to hold celebrations in such a way that may cause inconvenience to the general public.The court noted that video of the alleged provocative speech which was produced by the police was “not in sequence and lacked continuity (there was no chain-link in between the contents in the video of the alleged provocative speech)” adding that “the speech footage submitted before the court was not in full” and cannot be taken into consideration.Also Read: Love and Hate in Hyderabad: The Incendiary Political Life of Akbaruddin OwaisiIn the Nirmal case, the legislator and Nirmal AIMIM president Azeem Bin Yahiya were booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including criminal conspiracy, promoting enmity between two groups on the basis of religion and deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings. In the Nizamabad case, Owaisi was also accused of offences similar offences.According to news agency PTI, the Crime Investigation Department (CID) investigated the Nizamabad case and filed the chargesheet in 2016 while the district police which probed the Nirmal case also submitted the chargesheet in the same year. A total of 41 witnesses were examined in the Nizamabad case while 33 people were examined in the Nirmal case.In his affidavit filed before Telangana’s assembly elections in December 2018, Owaisi had declared 14 criminal cases against him, most of them for “promoting enmity between different (religious) groups” and for disobeying government authorities.(With PTI inputs)Note: This article was updated with additional information at 8:23 pm on April 13, 2022.