The leader of AIMIM, Asaduddin Owaisi, criticised the Popular Front of India’s five-year suspension while making it clear that his stand is not in favour of PFI either.
From his opposition to the UAPA, he said a draconian ban of this kind is dangerous as it is a ban on any Muslim who wishes to speak his mind. “The way India’s electoral autarky is approaching fascism, every Muslim youth will now be arrested with a PFI pamphlet under India’s black law, UAPA,” he tweeted.
Muslims have spent decades in prison before being acquitted by courts. I have opposed UAPA & will always oppose all actions under UAPA. It runs afoul the principle of liberty, which is part of basic structure of the constitution,” Owaisi tweeted.
Owaisi claimed that this case will follow the timeline of Siddique Kappan, a journalist from Kerala who was detained in 2020 while heading to Hathras, where any activist or journalist is unjustly imprisoned and it takes two years to even obtain bail. To report the gangrape and murder of a Dalit woman, Kappan was heading to Hathras. The Uttar Pradesh government filed charges against him under the UAPA. After serving two years in prison, Kappan was released on bail in 2022.
“How come PFI is banned but organisations associated with convicts of Khaja Ajmeri bomb blasts aren’t? Why has govt not banned right wing majoritarian organisations?” Owaisi said.
Owaisi said he always opposed PFI’s approach but he can’t support the ban on the PFI. “Actions of some individuals who commit crime does not mean that the organisation itself must be banned,” the Hyderabad MP said.