• Thursday, March 28, 2024

HEADLINE STORY

Six arrested over anti-Modi posters across Delhi; ‘dictatorship at peak’, says AAP

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi (ANI Photo/ SansadTV)

By: Shubham Ghosh

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday (22) slammed the Narendra Modi government after thousands of posters put up across Delhi targeting prime minister Modi triggered a police crackdown a day before. Thirty six cases were filed related to the incident while six people were arrested two out of whom own a printing press.

The AAP, which is one of the major anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) forces in the country, said it was the “peak of the Modi government’s dictatorship”.

In a massive operation, the police took down nearly 2,000 posters from various places in the national capital. Most of the posters carried the slogan “Modi hatao, desh bachao” (Remove Modi, save the country).

Sources in the police said the arrests were made for defacing public property and under the law that requires posters to bear the identity of the printing press. They said 138 first information reports (FIRs) were registered, of which 36 were for posters targeting the prime minister.

“All posters should bear the name of the printer. Any violations will attract legal action. Such action is ongoing and will continue,” Delhi Police said in a statement.

The police also seized some 2,000 posters that were allegedly being carried to the AAP’s office. They found the posters in a vehicle the driver of which told them that he had been asked to deliver them to the AAP’s headquarters.

In a tweet in Hindi, the AAP said, “The Modi government’s dictatorship is at peak. What’s so objectionable in this poster that Modi went for 100 FIRs? PM Modi, you probably do no know that India is a democracy. Why so much fear for a poster?”

It also posted a picture of the “Modi hatao, desh bachao” slogan.

According to a report by NDTV, the attested owners of the printing press told Delhi Police that they had received order to print 50,000 posters bearing the slogan.

The BJP, which rules the centre, and the AAP, which runs the government in Delhi, are often at loggerheads. Recently, the two parties had a serious clash over the results of the Delhi civic body polls and the arrest of former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia’s arrest over an alleged liquor policy scam.

The BJP hit back at the AAP in the posters incident accusing it of not following the law while putting them up.

“AAP doesn’t have the courage to say that they put up the protests. They broke the law while putting up the posters,” Delhi BJP spokesperson Harish Khurana said.

The AAP has announced a plan to hold a protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi to seek the ouster of Modi.

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