The Principal Civil Judge and JMFC Court, Belthangady, has sentenced SDPI national general secretary Riyaz Farangipete to six months of simple imprisonment and imposed a fine of ₹10,000 on finding him guilty of delivering an inflammatory speech in Belthangady in July 2015.Magistrate Ramalingappa, on Tuesday, passed the order of sentence for the offence under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code. In order to serve the term of imprisonment, the Magistrate remanded Farangipete to judicial custody. Soon after, a warrant indicating the term of imprisonment was sent to the Prison Department.According to the chargesheet, Farangipete, in a speech at a protest meet of the Popular Front of India in Belthangady on July 23, 2015, said if assault of Muslims continued in the name of cows, then PFI activists would slaughter cows in public and sell beef. In the coming Bakrid, PFI activists would sell beef in front of the Belthangady bus stand. The PFI activists would teach a fitting lesson to those who came to prevent it, Farangipete said in his speech.The police considered this as an inflammatory speech and filed a chargesheet accusing Farangipete of offences under Sections 153A and 295A of the IPC, after a getting sanction from the government.In his 33-page judgment, the Magistrate said Farangipete’s speech had the potential to disturb peace among communities. Though there was no resultant communal violence, the potential damage from his public speech could not be ignored. The offence of Farangipete would not be considered as trivial. As he was found deliberately making this inflammatory public speech, the court could not just issue a warning to the offender, the Magistrate stated. Published - August 04, 2026 10:52 pm IST