CPIML has condemned the Bhagwant Mann- AAP led Punjab government's decision to invoke draconian National Security Act against youths arrested in connection to crackdown on radical outfit Waris Punjab De. The party also has raised serious concerns regarding the failure of the government to arrest the outfits leader Amritpal Singh despite massive police operation and clampdown on internet services across Punjab. Instead the Punjab government is playing into Modi government’s divisive ploy.
CPIML categorically rejecting the Amritpal’s ideological stance, noted that AAP government failed to act earlier despite Amritpal openly spreading his divisive propaganda. There is massive discontent among the people of Punjab, particularly its youth, with successive governments for having failed their aspirations, and even their AAP experiment seems to be headed in the same direction. People like Amritpal Singh funnel this frustration and disappointment towards a Khalistan religious line, which Punjab has had to contend with previously in the form of Bhinderwale. Punjab is being pushed to those dark days where religious sentiments were used for political motives and the common people paid the price of living through a police state marked by disappearances, encounters and loss of basic civil liberties and human rights. Yet again, basic civil liberties are suspended in the name of this crackdown against essentially one man, Amritpal Singh, and basic freedoms – of assembly, speech, dissent – are indiscriminately trampled upon. Needless to add, the polarisation being forced in Punjab will politically benefit the BJP.
CPIML reiterates its position rejecting the use of draconian laws like NSA, UAPA etc. These laws have no place in any democratic society. The AAP government shouldn’t invoke these draconian laws, which are hall mark of BJP’s government communal - fascist politics.
