Aneesh’s buddy alleges that the arrest was made with no warrant and that Aneesh was taken to the police station beneath false pretences.
Coimbatore police arrested fashionable rationalist Aneesh Jasy ST final week for his Facebook posts questioning a number of the tenets of Islam. Aneesh is well-known in Tamil atheist circles and used to additionally host the Atheist House Tamil room on the Clubhouse app to debate rationalism, scientific mood, caste discrimination and superstition. His Facebook posts are additionally in an analogous vein, questioning many Islamic beliefs. He normally makes use of the hashtag #ExMuslim to point that he himself had been born within the faith however had chosen atheism as a substitute.
Late at evening on December 29, Aneesh was taken to the Kuniyamuthur police station. Speaking to TNM, his buddy alleges that the police had no warrant for the arrest and had as a substitute informed Aneesh and his spouse that he was being requested to go to the station concerning an inquiry about his colleague. The FIR was filed after Aneesh’s arrest, the buddy additional alleges. Also, the FIR was filed on the premise of a criticism by the sub-inspector (SI) of Kuniyamuthur police station itself.
In the FIR, SI V Ganesh Kumar claims that he was made conscious of Facebook posts by Aneesh that “insult Islam, the Prophet and the Holy Quran”. Based on this, the SI says he checked the offending Facebook posts. One of Aneesh’s posts referred to within the FIR says that “people cry crocodile tears over a book that they insist is holy” to which a meme is hooked up. The meme options an “ex-Muslim” who says, “he is ashamed when he reads the Hadith”. Another submit refers to a current viral video of a devotee of Annapoorani Arasu Amma, a self-proclaimed godwoman. The devotee is seen loudly asking to be blessed holding the godwoman’s ft to her face. Aneesh had known as Muslims laughing on the video “hypocritical”, including that “there was no difference between the godwoman and Prophet Muhammad”.
SI Ganesh says within the FIR that printouts of those Facebook posts have been hooked up to his written criticism. The Kuniyamuthur police have charged Aneesh beneath 295(a) [deliberate and malicious acts meant to outrage religious feelings], 153A(1)(c) [promoting enmity between different groups of religion, race place of birth etc.] and 505(2) [statement conducing to public mischief].
Aneesh’s buddy says he suspects that conservative Muslims who submit threatening feedback on Aneesh’s Facebook profile are behind the arrest however didn’t wish to be named because the complainants. “I don’t believe that the police themselves went looking for his posts and took it upon themselves to file a complaint. What Aneesh was doing was nothing new. People from various religious backgrounds have become atheists and written about the flaws of their previous faiths. Since Periyar’s time, this has been happening here. He was only criticising hypocrisy within the religion he had left.”
The buddy additionally stated that on the evening of the arrest, Aneesh was made to name his spouse round 10 pm and say that he could be dwelling quickly. He, nevertheless, stays in jail. Aneesh was initially despatched to Perundurai sub-jail and his bail plea was rejected on January 5. He is now in Coimbatore Central Jail, Aneesh’s buddy tells us.