Welfare Party of India national president S.Q.R. Ilyas has accused the Union government of misusing the official machinery to hound social workers and leaders of various organisations.
Addressing a public meeting here on Thursday, he said the Sangh Parivar strategy of using communal polarisation and murder to crush dissent had created a feeling of insecurity in the country. He said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre was trying to subvert the Constitution.
Condemning the brutal murder of a tailor at Udaipur, he said fascist forces were using the incident to unleash violence on minority communities in the country. He also stressed the need to put up stiff resistance to the caste-based social order promoted by the Sangh Parivar organisations.
Earlier, addressing the media, Mr. Ilyas said the ‘bulldozer raj’ by BJP governments in various States constituted a blatant violation of the rule of law in the country. Mr. Ilyas said the regimes had made a habit of branding individuals as accused and bulldozing their homes and institutions without even judicial review. This, he said, was typical of anti-democratic, fascist regimes.
Mr. Ilyas said the arrest of activist Teesta Setalvad and former police official R.B. Sreekumar was intended to discourage voices of dissent. Institutions and investigative agencies such as the Election Commission, the Reserve Bank of India, Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Income Tax department and the CBI had become tools for the ruling front to take on political opponents.
Terming the remarks of Governor Arif Mohammed Khan on the madrasa curriculum unfortunate, he said Mr. Khan was speaking as a spokesperson for the BJP and the Union government.
