A court in Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit on Tuesday exonerated Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Varun Gandhi from charges of delivering a hate speech in his constituency prior to the 2009 general elections. Gandhi was given relief in another similar case last week due to lack of evidence.

While the eyewitnesses could not validate the charges, even the journalists who reported the event could not furnish unedited and raw footage of the speech in which Gandhi was accused of threatening to chop off hands of a certain community.