New Delhi: Four persons arrested from a village in Gujarat’s Vadodara district for making an inflammatory speech in a video have been charged with sedition – seven days after they were taken into custody under other sections of the IPC.
The charge under Section 124A of the IPC was slapped on them while they were produced before the local court after their six-day police remand ended and were sent to judicial custody.
On October 9, Salem Malek, Iqbal Chauhan, Sameer Iqbal Ahmed Malek and Javed Malek, residents of the district’s Ranu village, were arrested for recording and uploading on social media a three-part video with reportedly communally sensitive messages in Hindi, which thereafter went viral. Local news reports said the video, recorded in an open farm, used derogatory words against women and the Hindu community over some incidents of violence related to the chanting of ‘Jai Shree Ram’, asserting that the Muslims of Gujarat would never chant it.
On complaint made by a fellow villager, Nitin Patel, the police took them into custody and registered a case under IPC sections 295A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs); 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place, birth, residence, language), 298 (uttering words, etc. with deliberate intent to hurt the religious sentiments of a person) and 294B (recited, sings or utters any obscene song, words, in or near any public place).
News reports said Patel complained to the police after he received the video on WhatsApp and alleged that it was aimed at spreading hatred among communities residing peacefully in the village.
On Tuesday, seven days after they were taken into custody, police also added the draconian section 124A into the list of charges against them. Officials told reporters that the decision was taken because the accused were also heard saying in the video that “they will make India like Pakistan”.
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“In the video, they were even heard saying that they will make India like Pakistan. Based on this, we added the charges of sedition and produced them in court (on October 15),” investigating officer Samat Kamur told the Indian Express. On asked why they were not charged under the section earlier, Sudhir Desai, Vadodara rural superintendent of police told the newspaper, “We observed that they wish to change India into Pakistan and these words can attract IPC 124A. In the course of the investigation, the IO has the power to amend the IPC sections as per the provision of law. It is the prerogative of the IO and so he added it.”
Another FIR has been lodged by a resident of Ranu village against the four accused, alleging that such videos could spread hatred among people belonging to different communities and disrupt peace.
The sedition law has come under criticism, with Supreme Court Justice Deepak Gupta recently calling for it to be toned down, if not abolished because it is “more often abused or misused”. In a lecture, he said:
“The people who criticise those in power are arrested by police officials on the asking of those in power and even if a person may get bail the next day from court, he has suffered the ignominy of being sent to jail. The manner in which the provisions of Section 124A are being misused, begs the question as to whether we should have a relook at it. Freedom of expression being a constitutional right must get primacy over laws of sedition. Sedition is a crime only when there is incitement to violence or public disorder. That is what the law of the land is as laid down in Kedar Nath Singh’s case.”
In another case, the Bihar police closed the sedition case lodged against 49 artists and celebrities who wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue of mob lynching. The police said the investigation had revealed that the allegations levelled against the accused were out of “mischief” and “lacked substance”.