PTI, CHENNAI/TUTICORIN: A major political slugfest broke out in Tamil Nadu Tuesday over the arrest of a woman student who raised slogans against BJP onboard a domestic flight with DMK and other opposition parties condemning it even as a Tuticorin court granted her bail. As the BJP and its state unit chief Tamilisai Soundararajan, on whose complaint the woman was arrested, came under fire for “crushing” freedom of expression, the ruling AIADMK defended the police action, saying if such conduct was allowed, political leaders could face a security issue.
A night after her arrest, 28-year-old Louis Sophia, a student of a Canadian university on a visit to her native Tuticorin, was granted unconditional bail by a court in the district headquarter town.
Soundararajan and the student, who travelled to Tuticorin by the same flight last night from Chennai, were involved in an altercation after landing at the airport, a video of which was aired by TV channels.
Tamilisai is heard telling the student and the other people at the arrival lounge that a plane was no place to raise slogans. “It (inside of a flight) is not a public forum….how can you expect me to keep mum when she shouts ‘down with BJP’s fascist government’ looking at me? Is it freedom of expression?” she asked.
The arrest triggered outrage, with DMK President M K Stalin slamming the BJP state chief and questioning her tolerance to criticism. “The central BJP government is crushing freedom of
expression and the state government is aiding it. This is regrettable,” he said in a statement. Condemning Sofia’s “hasty arrest”, he recalled the Supreme Court’s observation on the recent arrest of Left-wing activists that dissent was a “safety valve” in a democracy.
“In a democratic country, a citizen can criticise not just the BJP government but that of any party and the state BJP chief’s action amounts to infringing on that freedom,” he said. MNM founder-president and actor Kamal Haasan, AMMK’s TTV Dhinakaran and CPI-M Politburo member G Ramakrishnan also denounced her arrest.
However, defending the arrest, senior AIADMK leader and state Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar accused the woman of seeking publicity and said she could have opted for more democratic avenues to express her views. “One can express their opinions or stage a protest in democratically approved places, can speak from a platform. Such avenues should be used to exercise freedom of expression. But some do such things for publicity for self-promotion,” he told reporters in Chennai.
He said an aircraft or airport was a public place under the jurisdiction of the Centre. “No democrat would accept someone raising slogans there or behaving in a way not
in keeping with democracy,” the minister said.
