FIR against Annie Raja, members of NFIW fact-finding team to Manipur malicious, vindictive: CPI

The CPI on Tuesday condemned the registration of an FIR against its national executive member Annie Raja and some other members of an NFIW-led fact-finding team that visited violence-hit Manipur, describing it "malicious and vindictive".

The FIR was filed in Impal on July 8 against Raja, National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) national secretary Nisha Sidhu and Deeksha Dwivedi, a lawyer, who were members of the fact-finding team.

"The FIR 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 said in a statement.

Terming the "criminalization of the democratic process of fact-finding an assault on constitutional ethos", the Left party said, "The double-engine government of the BJP seems keen on escaping all manners of transparency and accountability to the citizenry of this country." It also condemned various other "malicious" FIRs against tribal students' organizations and their functionaries, rights activists and intellectuals like Professor 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," the CPI alleged.

It said that for almost three months now, Manipur is under 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 the 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 party said.

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