CPI Condemns Farcical FIR against Annie Raja

 Tuesday 11th July 2023 at 04:05 PM

She was leading the NFIW’s Fact Finding Team

New Delhi: 11th July 2023: (Karthika Singh//The Comrade Screen Desk)

CPI Condemns Farcical FIR against Annie Raja and other members of NFIW’s Fact Finding Team. The National Secretariat of the Communist Party of India issued the following statement today (on July 11, 2023):

The Communist Party of India strongly condemns the FIR filed against Annie Raja, General Secretary NFIW and member of National Executive of CPI, Nisha Sidhu, National Secretary, NFIW and leader of CPI in Rajasthan and Deeksha Dwivedi, independent lawyer, who were part of the NFIW led fact-finding team to Manipur. The FIR filed at Imphal on 8th July 2023 is clearly vindictive and malicious without any element of truth in it. This invocation of criminal proceedings against reputed women leaders is a clear indication of the abuse of power by the local component of the ‘double engine government’. The CPI views the criminalization of the democratic process of fact-finding as an assault on constitutional ethos. The double-engine government of BJP seems keen on escaping all manners of transparency and accountability to the citizenry of this country.

The CPI also condemns various other malicious FIRs against tribal students’ organizations and their functionaries, rights activists and intellectuals like Prof. Kham Khan Suan Hausing of the University of Hyderabad. The ruling dispensation remains true to its fascist drive by attempting to crush dissent, criticality, dialogue, and even the very right to speech.

For almost three months now, the state of Manipur is undergoing severe crisis and instability with an unprecedented loss of life and property. While several factors are at play in the current situation that are exacerbating the violence, the most glaring and unacceptable one is the absolute State apathy and inaction. The silence of the Prime Minister and incompetence of the incumbent chief minister stand antithetical to all Constitutional values. The action as well as the inaction of the governments in the current crisis displays the RSS-BJP combine’s pro-corporate agenda. The experiences of Gujarat are before us of how these right-wing forces in power have made use of the fissures in society to push through with their divisive anti-people policies.

The CPI and the democratic forces will stand up before any kind of intimidation and fight legally and politically to uphold truth and justice.