Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 17: All hell has broken loose in Tamil Nadu over the arrest of a BJP activist allegedly for spreading fake news with all senior leaders of the party, including some union ministers, viewing the development as the collapse of democracy in the DMK-ruled state.
The BJP leader SG Suryah, the party’s state secretary in Tamil Nadu, was arrested on Friday for allegedly spreading fake news on social media. He was arrested for a tweet alleging the death of a sanitation worker in Madurai and vilifying Madurai MP, Su. Venkatesan and a non-existent Communist Party of India (Marxist) councillor.
A team of the Cyber Crime police from Madurai arrested Suryah at his residence in Chennai on the night of Friday under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the Information Technology Act, on charges of wanton vilification of a particular group and intentional insults.
The Madurai district police have denied the incident having taken place in the district. The police said the action had been taken based on a complaint lodged by CPI (M) Madurai Urban District secretary, M. Ganesan.
In his complaint addressed to the Commissioner of Police, Madurai City, Ganesan said that Suryah had posted a false message on a social media platform on June 10. In the message, Suryah had said Viswanathan, councillor of ward 12 of Madurai Pennadam Town panchayat had forced a cleanliness worker to clean water mixed with human faeces. The worker, belonging to the Scheduled Caste community, later died due to an allergy and the CPI (M) MP, Su. Venkatesan was maintaining a stoic silence on the issue, Suryah had claimed in his post.
Ganesan claimed that Madurai district did not have a Town panchayat named Pennadam, and there was no councillor named Viswanathan. Similarly, no such incident involving the death of a cleanliness worker had been reported. He complained that Suryah had created social tensions by spreading rumours with the intention of incite caste clash.
Based on the complaint, Suryah was booked under various sections of the IPC including 153 A (wanton vilification upon particular group), 504 of IPC (insulting someone intentionally to provoke), 505(1)(b) (induce any person to commit offence against State or public tranquility), 505 (1) (c) (inciting community of persons to commit any offence against any other community). Suryah was brought to Madurai and produced before a judicial magistrate court.
The BJP has condemned the arrest with the state president accusing the state government of using the police to curtail free speech.
“The arrest of @BJP4TamilNadu State Secretary Thiru @SuryahSG avl is highly condemnable. His only mistake was to expose the nasty double standards of the communists, allies of DMK,” State BJP president K Annamalai said on Twitter.
“Using state machinery to curtail free speech & getting jittery for the slightest criticism is unbecoming of a democratically elected leader and, indeed, are signs of an autocratic leader in the making. Drawing inspiration from autocrats, TN CM Thiru @mkstalin is turning the state into a lawless jungle. These arrests will not deter us & we will continue to be bearers of the uncomfortable truth!” Annamalai tweeted. Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and several other senior BJP leaders termed the arrest an “overreach” and “violation of rights.”
In a scathing letter aimed at Communist Party of India (CPI) Councillor Viswanathan, Mr Suryah said that a sanitation worker from Madurai died on the job as he was forced to work in faecal water due to which he developed an allergic reaction in his body.
The BJP leader lashed out at Mr Viswanathan for his double standards, for forcing the deceased sanitation worker to resort to manual scavenging despite being aware that it is prohibited by law. The letter was attached to his tweet by Suryah on his Twitter handle. In the same tweet, Suryah attacked Madurai MP Venkatesan for his silence. “Your fake politics of separatism stinks worse than that cesspool, find a way to live as a human being, mate!” a rough translation of his tweet in Tamil read.
