HRF, CPI condemn TS for banning 16 outfits

HYDERABAD: The Human Rights Forum (HRF), Civil Liberties Committee (CLC) - Telangana, and Communist Party of India (CPI) have strongly condemned the Telangana State government for declaring 16 organisations as unlawful associations for a period of one year and demanded that the GO in question be revoked.HRF’s TS and AP coordination committee members S Jeevan Kumar and VS Krishna said that invoking the Telangana Public Security Act, 1992, to declare 16 organisations as unlawful associations was a political instrument disguised in the form of law.

“What it seeks to make unlawful is not violence - which has been proscribed ever since the birth of the State in history - but politics and social activism that is not palatable to the ruling dispensation. Such an approach impinges upon the fundamental freedom and is unacceptable in a democracy. HRF sincerely hopes that better sense will prevail with the Telangana government and the notification will be revoked forthwith,” they said.

CLC -Telangana president, Prof Gaddam Laxman said that the CLC never had the agenda to implement Maoists’ agenda and added, “The State government should inform us where these  organisations have gone wrong and whether they have taken up any illegal activities. We have been working for more than five decades in a democratic fashion. Is it illegal to demand the State to rule as per the established law?”

The CPI State secretary Chada Venkat Reddy said that it was a breach of the Constitutional Right to Freedom of Speech. “During the Telangana movement for separate Statehood, CM KCR had claimed that he would like to be the president of CLC and now, has banned the same organisation, after coming into power. At a time when the Maoist party was indicating that they were ready for talks, banning some organisations accusing them of having nexus with Maoists was meaningless,” he added.