Filmmaker-activist Aisha Sultana booked for sedition over calling Lakshadweep administrator ‘bio-weapon’

The Lakshadweep police on Thursday, 10 June registered a sedition case against actor, filmmaker and film activist Aisha Sultana for commenting that the Centre has used the Union Territory’s administrator Praful K Patel as a “bio-weapon” on the people of Lakshadweep Islands. As per an Indian Express report, BJP’s Lakshadweep unit president C Abdul Khader Haji has filed a case against Sultana under Section 124 A of IPC (sedition) and 153 B (hate speech) at the Kavaratti police station. During a panel discussion on a Malayalam news channel, Sultana recently blamed Patel’s decisions for coronavirus cases on the island and stated that the Centre had used it as a “bio-weapon”. She said, “Lakshadweep had zero cases of COVID-19. Now, it is reporting a daily spike of 100 cases. What the Centre has deployed is a bioweapon. I can say this clearly that the central government has deployed bioweapon”. After hearing her comments, BJP workers protested against her on the streets in anger for “tarnishing the patriotic image of the central government”. Reacting to the whole controversy, Sultana has now defended her comments in a Facebook post by saying that the “truth will win” and her voice is going to be louder now. She added that she’ll continue her fight. The Lakshadweep Sahithya Pravarthaka Sangham has now come out in the support of Sultana. In a press statement, the Sangham condemned the charges against her and said that she was trying to drive home the Lakshadweep Administrator’s “inhuman” measures. Before Patel took charge in December last year, there was not even a single case of coronavirus in Lakshadweep for around a year due to the mandatory quarantine and other COVID protocols. However, he reportedly changed the SOPs after which the deadly virus reached the island. Since then, he has been facing protests over his decisions.