The chief minister is hell-bent on unleashing onslaught on the democratic rights of the people even by challenging the Supreme Court, says Samyukt Kisan Morcha
NEW DELHI — The Samyukt Kisan Morcha, a broad coalition of farmers organisations, has come out in support of senior journalists Siddharth Varadarajan and Karan Thapar who are facing criminal cases filed by the BJP government in Assam.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the kisan body urged the Supreme Court to protect senior journalists and members of the Foundation for Independent Journalism from any coercive action by the Assam Police’s Crime Branch.
It stated that the FIR invoking sedition charges against top scribes has exposed the state chief minister who is “hell-bent on unleashing onslaught on the democratic rights of the people even by challenging the Supreme Court.”
As of now, the top court has protected the journalists from arrests in the FIR filed by Morigaon Police Station of Assam. On the same day Assam Police’s Crime Branch registered a second FIR also under Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023 against the journalists. The fresh summons by the Guwahati crime branch cited the same charges, in addition to the BNS sections pertaining to promoting enmity between different groups, publishing false or misleading information and criminal conspiracy.
“It seems the chief minister of Assam thinks himself above the rule of law and does not respect even the apex court of the country,” the SKM statement said.
The BNS provision is in essence the colonial Section 124A (sedition) of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code and the operation of this section had been stayed in 2022 by the apex court and referred to a constitution bench for judicial scrutiny and an authoritative pronouncement. The united kisan movement also was accused of sedition charges during the historic farmers’ struggle of 2020- 21. SKM had strongly protested the BNS 2023 as authoritarian and against the democratic rights of the people and in violation of the Constitutional rights of the citizens.
The SKM called upon all the kisan organisations, trade unions and associations of all other mass sections including journalists to join hands, assess the deterioration of civil rights of the people under the ruling alliance of NDA-BJP combine and a belligerent bureaucracy and ensure building massive resistance converting to fight on offensive to protect democracy.
