Piyasree Dasgupta - BJP Govt Went To Crazy Lengths To Punish A Student For A Facebook Post

By Dilip -
NB: Readers who scroll down this report will find this:“My sister grabbed another police and asked them to stop his colleague,” he said. The police responded by also charging Thokchom with obstructing a public servant on duty. On their way to the Janakpuri police station, where Thokchom was kept in a lock-up for two days, the Delhi Police personnel asked what he intended to do in future. When Veewon said he had applied for PhD, they immediately asked, “So you will go to JNU? Or Aligarh Muslim University?” “It was sort of amusing. I said I had applied to JNU yes,” Veewon said.

What business is it of the police to make these kinds of assaults and remarks whilst raiding the premises of a completely guiltless person? After the manner in which the RSS organisations have treated Kashmiri students in Uttarakhand, this report shows that far from being concerned about national unity, this gang of communal thugs who could best be named Sangh Lafang have devoted themselves to destroying even the simplest trust in human decency necessary for ordinary life. 

All those who think the RSS ideology represents 'patriotism' may kindly think about this: if you treat Indian citizens from outside the "Hindi heartland" with such contempt, by what right do you want them to belong to the Union of India? Shame on the BJP/RSS and shame on the Janakpuri police. Be warned - you are breaking up the country, regardless of how loudly you shout Bharat Mata. DS

At 5.15 in the evening on February 15, five plain-clothes policemen, three from Delhi and two from Manipur, arrived at Thokchom Veewon’s rented apartment in south Delhi, physically assaulted him, forced him into a waiting Maruti Alto and sped off. For the next two days Thokchom, a 23-year-old student leader from Manipur, was untraceable even as the Manipur police kept calling his parents to assure them he was safe. On February 19, four days after his arrest, he was freed on bail after posting a bond of Rs 30,000.

Thokchom, it turned out, had been charged with sedition after the Manipur police spotted a Facebook post in which he criticised the Citizenship Amendment Bill — the Bharatiya Janta Party’s controversial bill that upends the existing conception of Indian citizenship by offering Indian citizenship to so-called persecuted minorities of all religions except Islam. The bill has sparked protests all over the North East, and has pushed the BJP’s alliance partner in Assam to walk out of the government. In his post, Thokchom wrote, “Indefinite curfew imposed in Manipur. Internet banned for 5 days. All cable TV network asked not to cover any speech or footage of the protest. High possibility that CAB will be passed today at the Rajya Sabha. Manipur once burned down the state assembly in 2001. Self determination the only way forward.”

Arrested On Sedition Charges In Delhi, Police Take Student Leader To Manipur
Protesters In The Northeast Claim Victory As Citizenship Bill Lapses

Thokchom’s arrest, activists say, shows how the BJP-led state government in Manipur seeking to please their overlords in Delhi by aggressively clamping down on those protesting the policies of the Modi-led BJP government in the centre. He has become the latest in the line of dozens of people - from auto-rickshaw drivers to serving policemen - who have been slapped with ‘sedition’ cases for social media posts critical of the BJP, the government at the centre or Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Further, Thokchom’s arrest is particularly worrying at a time when the Union government is seeking to build specialised tools to monitor all social media posts of citizens.

Thokchom, who is a former President of the Manipur Students Union told HuffPost India that despite his arrest, he stands by his post and has hence not deleted it from his profile... read more
https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/manipurs-bjp-govt-went-to-crazy-lengths-to-punish-a-student-for-a-facebook-post_in_5c6ecd7ae4b0f40774cd051b?8pq&utm_hp_ref=in-homepage


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