Sedition charge on Lakshadweep filmmaker

KOCHI: Lakshadweep-based activist and filmmaker Aisha Sultana, who was booked by Kavaratti police for making a comment that ‘a bio-weapon’ was used against the islands, said through a Facebook post that she would continue to fight for her land.
She had made the controversial comment during a TV debate while talking about the change in the Covid standard operating procedure in the islands which had zero cases and the subsequent spurt in cases.
The FIR was registered against her under Section 124 A (Sedition) and 153 B (Imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration). The activist had later clarified that she compared the administrator Praful Khoda Patel with a bio-weapon and not the government or the country.
“Only truth will prevail. The BJP leader who gave the complaint was a Lakshadweep native. When he is betraying the land he was born in, I would continue my fight for it. My voice will be louder from now on,” Sultana wrote on Friday.
She had posted on Facebook on Tuesday that there was a campaign against her, trying to picture her as anti-national.
“Everyone who has seen the debate would know that I used that word to denote Praful Patel. I felt that Praful Patel and his policies were like a weapon,” Sultana had said. Kavaratti police registered the case based on a complaint by C Abdul Kader Haji, state president of BJP, Lakshadweep. Meanwhile, a resignation letter surfaced on Friday in which at least 12 members of BJP from Chetlat island tendered their resignation from the primary membership of the party in protest against complaint filed by Haji against Aisha Sultana.