Complaint against Arundhati Roy by SC lawyer over false information for NPR remarks; politicos slam activist

A Supreme Court lawyer filed a complaint against writer-activist Arundhati Roy a day after she urged the public to oppose the National Population Register (NPR) by furnishing wrong names and addresses. [caption id=“attachment_6198041” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Arundhati Roy. Facebook/ Chobi Mela[/caption] Addressing a protest gathering at Delhi University on Wednesday, Roy claimed that the NPR would serve as a database for the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and alleged that the latter targetted the Muslims of the country. Roy said that officials will visit people’s homes under NPR exercise for taking their names, addresses and other details. “Whenever the officials come to collect your information for NPR, you can give wrong names like Ranga-Billa or Kungfu-Kutta and also give wrong address like 7, Race Course Road,” Roy told the protest meet, as per a report in India Today. In his complaint, advocate Rajeev Kumar Ranjan said, “The above statement is nothing but a deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings of Muslims.” Ranjan filed the complaint against Roy in Delhi’s Tilak Marg police station under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and National Security Act for offenses such as mischief, breach of peace, intent to cause a riot and criminal conspiracy. “I have sought an investigation into the matter and punishment to her so that she learns the lesson and never passes such comments ever again,” Ranjan added. Meanwhile, politicians from both sides of the aisle slammed Roy for her comments. Congress media panelist Shama Mohamed tweeted:

What nonsense is #ArundhatiRoy speaking! It's one thing to ask people to refuse to participate in #NPR, but to ask them to give out incorrect details is completely wrong. Who does she think she is! We don't need unsolicited advice from someone who insults our Indian Army!

— Dr. Shama Mohamed (@drshamamohd) December 25, 2019

BJP vice-president Uma Bharti, in a series of tweets, took the author to task, saying that in the minds of educated women such as Roy, the names of Subash Chandra Bose, Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh and Ashfaqullah Khan did not come up but the names of Ranga and Billa came up. Bharti went on to note that the pair were hardcore criminals who hit the headlines because of the rape and murder of a young girl and her brother in the 1970s. Bharti further tweeted that she was ashamed of Roy’s views which were not only “anti-women and anti-humanity” but also of a very disgusting mentality. Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the BJP leader and former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, tweeted: “If there are the type of intellectuals we have in this country, then we should first compile a register of such people. Roy should be ashamed of herself. Is such statements are not a betrayal of the nation, then what is?” With inputs from agencies