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An office-bearer of a Christian organisation in Chhattisgarh was arrested for allegedly hurting the sentiments of the Hindu community through a comment he wrote on a social media post, The Hindu quoted the Raipur Police as saying on Saturday.
A first information report was registered against Arun Pannalal, president of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum, on the basis of a complaint filed by a Bharatiya Janata Party leader.
BJP Spokesperson Amit Chimnani alleged that Pannalal had written a “highly objectionable” comment on a Facebook post about a Hindu deity.
Pannalal was booked under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to promoting enmity between different groups, deliberately outraging religious feelings and intentionally insulting a person with the intent to provoke a breach of peace.
He was arrested on Friday night and sent to judicial custody on Saturday, Yaman Dewangan, inspector in charge of Raipur Civil Lines police station told The Indian Express.
Pannalal has previously raised concerns about the attacks and discrimination against the Christian community in Chhattisgarh.
Activists, academics express concern
On Sunday, a group of minority rights activists, writers and academics condemned Pannalal’s arrest, saying that the only real offence committed by him was that he refused to stay silent as state governments “tighten the noose around minority faith practice and dissent”.
They said that Pannalal is one of the most “consistent and outspoken voices against the wave of anti-conversion legislation and communal targeting sweeping the state”.
The group alleged that the sections under which he has been charged have, in recent years, become the BJP’s “preferred instrument for criminalising minority speech”.
“This arrest cannot be read in isolation,” they added. “It comes as Chhattisgarh operationalises its amended anti-conversion law with growing severity and as Odisha memorialises those associated with anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal.”
The group demanded that Pannalal be released immediately.
“The Constitution guarantees every citizen, Christian or otherwise, the right to freedom of expression and freedom of conscience under Articles 19 and 25,” they said. “Chhattisgarh’s government would do well to remember that governing a state is not the same as running a vendetta.”
Among the signatories of the statement are John Dayal, a former member of the National Integration Council, Goldy George, who is associated with the organisation Rights of Indigenous People and Ashok Sharma, a retired diplomat and constitutional conduct activist.
Edited by Tanya Shrivastava and Sneha.
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