On Thursday, the Kavaratti police booked the filmmaker and actress Aisha Sultana with charges of sedition and hate speech, on the complaint of BJP Lakshadweep wing president C Abdul Khader Haji, about her remarks on the Covid-19 situation in the UT at a panel discussion on a Malayalam news channel.
Abdul Khader, in his complaint, alleged that Ms. Sultana, a native of Chetlat Island, had said that the Centre was using the Covid-19 as a ‘bio-weapon’ against the people of Lakshadweep.
The Kavaratti police have registered a case against Sultana under Section 124A, 153B of IPC.
On June 7, Sultana participated in a prime time debate on Malayalam news channel Media One and made remarks against the pandemic mismanagement by the present Lakshadweep Administration.
The UT of Lakshadweep had zero cases of Covid-19 for about a year because of the strict regulations, and the mandatory quarantine for the travellers at Kochi.
In December, last year, Praful Parel took charge of the administration and changed the SOP despite protests, which led to Covid-19 reaching the island’s shores. And the UT has had more than 9,000 cases since then.
“The island was COVID-free until Patel came leading to the outbreak of the disease,” Sultana said in response to the police complaint. She also said that despite being aware of the poor healthcare system on the island, the administrator paid no heed and demoted the medical director.
“I compared him to a bio-weapon,” said Sultana, referring to the statements she made at the panel discussion. “My comments were not made against the Union Government. I implied the biological impacts of the regulations heralded in by the administrator on the native population,” she added.
The UT administrator Praful Khoda Patel, for some time, has been facing a lot of backlash from people both within the island and outside, over the new reforms that he has introduced in the Muslim-majority islands.
The people have to say that the reforms are against the interest of the islanders. People have been protesting against the draft legislations like Lakshadweep Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Regulation (Goonda Act), Lakshadweep Animal Preservation Regulation and Lakshadweep Panchayat Regulation, 2021 among others.
Meanwhile, the FIR against Aisha Sultana has recieved a huge backlash from various sections of the society.
The Lakshadweep Sahithya Pravarthaka Sangham, a collective of authors and cultural activists from the island, released a press statement and condemned the sedition charge and maintained that Ms Sultana was only trying to drive home the “inhuman” measures undertaken by the Lakshadweep Administrator.
The Sangham also said that it was deplorable that a comment made in passing has been portrayed as a seditious statement.
“We appreciate Aisha Sultana for speaking about the atrocities committed by the administrator to the media,” said the statement.