After the Madhya Pradesh police dropped charges of sedition against 15 Muslim youth for allegedly shouting anti-India slogan during the Indo-Pak cricket match, the Bar Association of Burhanpur has decided to reconsider its decision of "not taking up their case in courts".
President of Bar Association of Burhanpur Rajesh Korawala said, "Some of our bar members were of the view that we should not defend those with sedition charges, but now with the changed circumstances we will decide afresh. We are bound by Advocates Act 1961 and any decision will be taken in its accordance."
District Court had earlier refused to give bail to the youth and sent them to jail. Later, with the change of charges, police informed the court that sedition charges have been dropped.
Earlier on June 19, based on complaints by some villagers of Mohad Burhanpur police had registered a case of 124A (sedition) against 15 youth for allegedly celebrating the victory of Pakistan in ICC Champions Trophy final. The had raised slogans in Pakistan’s favour and burst crackers. All the youth, aged between 19 to 40 years, were arrested.
Police inspector Sanjay Pathak of Shahpur station, who acted on a complaint based on a video circulated in social media of Burhanpur.
Burhanpur is a communally sensitive district of western Madhya Pradesh bordering Jalgaon of Maharashtra. Most of the youth belonged to a community called Tadvi Muslims—local tribals who converted to Islam. The youth were not only booked by police, but also were threatened that all their social welfare benefits will be suspended.
A villager, who is the father of one of the accused said "My son has been falsely implicated in the case. We don’t even have television in our house nor does my son use mobile phone."
He said there are some locals who wanted to pressurise us for other reasons and they made this complaint. He said, "Since the case, the police is harassing the entire village."
Meanwhile, facing huge backlash from various quarters of the country, the Madhya Pradesh police dropped the sedition charges. "This is probably the first instance in the country that charges of sedition have been thrusted against some one on such an issue," said Pankaj Chaturvedi, spokesperson of Congress.
Superintendent of police of Burhanpur district, RRS Parihar said, "We have revoked the charges of sedition 124A, after it was found during investigation that the accused should have been booked under section 153A of the Indian Penal Code and not under sedition charges."
Section 153A is used to level charges of "promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony."
Incidentally, Burhanpur is Lok Sabha constituency of BJP state chief Nandkumar Singh Chouhan and state Congress chief Arun Yadav.
