New Delhi: Pon Radhakrishnan, MP from Kanyakumari and Minister of state for finance and shipping, has been accused of spreading falsehoods “with deliberate intent to cause fear and alarm to sections of the public”.
The complaint relates to the case against French journalists Arthur Bouvart and Jules Giraudat, who were investigating illegal sand-mining in Tamil Nadu, and ended up accused of spying and criminal trespass.
While in the area, the French journalists had visited the compound of Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL). Bouvart has told The Wire that they entered IREL with permission, went directly to speak to a manager, and left immediately when asked to. However, a case of criminal trespass, read with sections of the Foreigners Act 1946, has been registered against them.
Also read: ‘French Spies’ in Tamil Nadu Were Journalists Exposing Sand Mining
Radhakrishnan, who represents the area, has repeatedly announced to the Tamil media that the French duo came by sea as part of a ‘treasonous conspiracy’ to steal ‘national secrets for another country’.
The BJP unit of Kanyakumari district put up posters with the faces of the French journalists, accusing them of being spies. They also took out a march and burned the effigy of the parish priest of Managudi, Father Kildos, who accompanied the French journalists to IREL.
The minister also alleged that the local administration and some journalists. “Does the Tamil Nadu government consider Kanyakumari a part of the state or not? If so, why the silence from the government despite such treasonous acts?” he asked in a statement to the local media.
Environmentalist activists A. Mariadasan, Thomas Franco and J. John Bellario have now pushed back, with a complaint to the Kanyakumari district Superintendent of Police (SP), of “provoking and inducing persons to commit an offence against the State or against public tranquility”. It invokes IPC Sec 124A (Sedition) and 505 (Public mischief).
The complaint notes that the earlier FIR, in the case of trespassing, “has no mention of either the French nationals or Fr. Kildos being spies, or that they have clandestinely come from the sea”.
Also read: The Countdown Begins For Tamil Nadu’s Beach Sand Mining Cartel
“They [BJP unit in Kanyakumari] have accused Christian priests of helping spies,” Thomas Franco told The Wire. Franco is the president of Rebuild Kanyakumari, an advocacy group for post-cyclone reconstruction.
“They saw this as an opportunity to turn Hindus against Christians before elections,” he said. “There is a history of communal violence between these communities here.”
He also accused Radhakrishnan of creating an alarmist situation on false pretexts. “A Central government minister is openly speaking against the police and the state government. He’s saying ‘spies’ have come to kill the locals and 18 lakh people’s life is in danger,” he said, calling it a deliberate attempt to stoke communal tension and create mistrust among local people.