BIDAR: Charging that the police slapped a sedition case against two innocent women in Bidar over an anti-CAA play at the instance of the state government, opposition leader Siddaramaiah said in Bidar on Friday that he will take up the issue in the assembly, which will meet for the budget session from Monday. The headmistress and mother of a fifth standard girl of Shaheen School in Bidar were arrested for the play staged by primary school girls on January 21. They were released on bail on Friday.
Slamming the government for suppressing the voice of the people, Siddaramaiah told the media that the state government is also behind the sedition case booked against the school management. He said that the government’s attempts to suppress voices against the Citizenship Amendment Act, National Register of Citizens and National Population Register are undemocratic.
He said that during the play, the 11-year-old girl said she would beat anyone asking for documents for NRC with chappals. “It was a general remark and the girl was only enacting a character in the play. This does not amount to sedition as the girl did not take anyone’s name. The police have booked a case under Section 124 (A) of the IPC, which was passed by the British in 1860. The law is not relevant anymore and the IPC should be reviewed,” he said.
He visited school headmistress Farida Begum and girl’s mother Najbunissa at the local jail, where they were lodged.The police have booked sedition cases against anti-CAA protesters in Mysuru, Managaluru and Ballari which shows that the state government is suppressing the voice of the people. There is an undeclared emergency in the state, and the government is creating fear psychosis among people by suppressing freedom of speech, he said.
He asked why the government has not booked a sedition case against a school run by RSS leader Kalladaka Prabhakar, where schoolchildren staged a play on the demolition of Babri Masjid. That play too was illegal, but the police chose not to book a case. It is discrimination of justice, he said.