The Hindu : Kerala News : BJP criticises Government

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 12, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

BJP criticises Government

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, APRIL 11. The BJP State president, P. S. Sreedharan Pillai, today said the police had no grounds to file a case against the Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader, Praveen Togadia, for his speech over the telephone at the `Hindu Rights Declaration' rally here yesterday.

In a statement here, Mr. Sreedharan Pillai accused the Antony Government of making the Home Department a tool for reaping political advantage from the incident.

"What Mr. Togadia had done was to expose the communalism of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and criticise the Chief Minister, A. K. Antony, for surrendering to the [will of the] IUML.

In his speech, he had also dealt with the activities of terrorist organisations in the State. How can this be interpreted as an offence under Section 153 of the Indian Penal Code," he asked.

He said every citizen had the right to air criticisms of this nature. It was pure fascism to misuse the law and the law-enforcing agency to silence criticism.

"The Kerala Police either does not know even the basics of the law, or it was bending backwards to please its political masters," he said.

The Fort Police here charged Mr. Togadia with the offence of `inciting communal enmity' through his telephonic speech at the rally yesterday.

Twenty others, including the general secretary of the Hindu Aikya Vedi, Kummanam Rajasekharan, are co-accused in this case.

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