Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan on Friday claimed that sitting on roads and disrupting normal life to get one’s demands met is a form of terrorism, PTI reported.
Khan made the remark at the Bharatiya Chhatra Sansad event in New Delhi. His remark was an apparent reference to protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act at Shaheen Bagh, where women have organised a sit-in since December 15. The Supreme Court had earlier this week set up a mediation team to speak to the protestors.
“Aggression doesn’t come in the form of violence only,” Khan said. “It comes in many forms... [such as] ‘If you won’t listen to me, I will disrupt normal life’.”
The Kerala governor said that there is no problem with dissent as it is the essence of democracy. “But five people sit outside Vigyan Bhawan [in Delhi] and say that we shall not move from here unless this Parliament adopts a resolution which we would like them to adopt,” he added. “This is another form of terrorism.”
Khan said people should not try to impose their views on others in the name of freedom of expression.
The Kerala governor also backed the abrogation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, saying the Article had been rendered empty long before the Centre’s decision on August 5 last year. “But when the house gets empty, and when there is no one to live inside, then many ghosts wander in that house,” Khan said. “This is how the ghost of terrorism has come in.”
Khan also claimed that things were progressively becoming normal in Kashmir.
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