Statement of Shri Rajnath Singh
National President, BJP

It is a matter of serious concern for our democratic polity that the Jammu & Kashmir Police has slapped the most heinous offences providing for in the Indian Penal Code i.e. 124 A (Sedition) punishable with life and Section 153 A (enmity between different group on grounds of religion race etc.); against two national office bearers of the BJP, Shri Vinay Katiyar, General Secretary and Sahib Singh Verma, Vice President. What is most distressing is that both these leaders in the course of Party’s Satyagrah at Jammu, protesting against killings of innocent people at Doda had criticised the soft handling of terrorism by the government of Jammu & Kashmir. Day in and day out large no. of innocent people both Hindus and Muslims are being killed with impunity in Jammu & Kashmir. The terrorists are getting active support from their patrons from across the border in Pakistan and also from their sympathisers who enjoy support in some segment of the government. In fact even the UPA government had acknowledged the recent spurt in terrorist killing.

In this light it is the constitutional right of any political party, more particularly the BJP which always believes in a strong and resurgent India; to protest against this gross mishandling of the scourge of terrorism and to institute cases of sedition for speaking against this, is not only unconstitutional, undemocratic but manifests a dictatorial mindset. In fact explanation 2 & 3 of Section 124 A (sedition) of the Indian Penal Code itself provides that comments expressing disapproval of the administrative or other action of the government without intent to excite hatred does not amount to sedition. Similarly, asking the people in the government to take strong action against the terrorists does not mean promoting enmity between different communities because terrorists are rabid killers who do not belong to any community or religion.

Shri Vinay Katiyar and Shri Sahib Singh Verma have repeatedly explained that they have emphasised on the need to strengthen Village Defence Committees, arm the villagers and install more military pickets so that there is no repetition of the recent type of massacre at Doda & Udhampur and elsewhere in J & K. What is indeed very tragic is that quite frequently we hear comments from responsible public leaders demanding openly freedom of Kashmir from India and involvement of Pakistan in any negotiation on parity with India. No action is taken against them much less invoking the serious charges of sedition. Surprisingly, on the other hand most atrocious charges have been levelled against the two office bearers of BJP who are sitting Member of Parliament and a former Chief Minister and Union Minister respectively. If Chief Minister Mr. Gulam Nabi Azad believes in democratic values then he must withdraw all these charges immediately.