Budding filmmaker Aisha Sultana has been booked for sedition by the Karravati Police after the Lakshadweep unit of BJP filed a complaint against her remarks about the COVID-19 situation in the union territory at a panel discussion on a Malayalam news channel.
BJP’s Lakshadweep unit president Abdul Khader, the complainant, said Sultana was spreading false news about the spread of COVID-19 in the union territory.
According to the FIR lodged on Wednesday (June 9, 2021) by the Kavaratti police, a case under Section 124 A (Sedition) and Section 153 B (Imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration) of the Indian Penal Code has been registered against the filmmaker.
Aisha Sultana had, during a news debate on a regional channel, blamed COVID cases in the island on Praful Patel’s decisions and remarked that the Centre had used bio-weapon against Lakshadweep. The Administrator has also been accused by protestors including Lakshadweep Parliamentarian Mohammed Faizal in the past of doing away with quarantine protocols that were a must for people to enter Lakshadweep.
“Lakshadweep had 0 cases of COVID-19. Now, it is reporting a daily spike of 100 cases. What the Centre has deployed is a bio-weapon. I can say this clearly that the central government has deployed bio-weapon,” Aisha allegedly said.
Justifying her statement in a recent Facebook post, Sultana wrote “I had used the word bio-weapon in the TV channel debate. I have felt Patel as well as his policies have acted as a bio-weapon. It was through Patel and his entourage that COVID-19 spread in Lakshadweep. I have compared Patel as a bioweapon, not the government or the country. You should understand. What else should I call him….”
Aisha Sultana, a native of Lashadweep’s Chetlat island, is an actor, model, and director. Aisha has previously worked as an associate director on the sets of the Malayalam film ‘Kettyolaanu Ente Malaakha’. She made her directorial debut in 2020, with the independent Malayalam film ‘FLush”. Often being vocal about social issues of Lakshadweep, Sultana is seen actively protesting the recent political crisis in the Union Territory.
While BJP workers in the Union Territory protested the filmmaker’s alleged remark, the party workers in Kerala have also filed complaints.
However, some actors and politicians have expressed solidarity with Aisha and opposed the sedition charge against her.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor alleged harassment through the misuse of the word ‘sedition’.
K. Bahir, the spokesperson of Lakshadweep Sahitya Pravarthaka Sangam, told, “It is not proper to depict her as an anti-national. She has reacted against the inhumane approach of the administrator. It was Patel’s interventions that made Lakshwadeep a COVID-affected area. The cultural community in Lakshadweep would stand with her.”
Patel, who was appointed as the administrator of Lakshadweep in December 2020, is facing opposition over policies introduced by him from the people of the Union Territory and politicians, both from within Lakshadweep and the neighboring state of Kerala.
On Monday (June 14, 2021), Sultana approached the Kerala High Court seeking anticipatory bail in a sedition case against her.
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