Tamil Nadu Court Asks Police To File FIR Against BJP State President Tamilisai Soundararajan In Lois Sofia Case

The Tamil Nadu Police has been asked by a Thoothukudi district court to file an FIR against BJP state president Tamilisai Soundararajan and her entourage for allegedly abusing and threatening a 28 year-old research scholar. This comes a month after research scholar Lois Sofia was arrested in Tuticorin airport for raising slogans on board an aircraft on 3 September, reports The Indian Express.

Sofia was arrested under Section 75 of the Tamil Nadu City Police (TNCP) Act, 1888 and later sent to judicial custody for 15 days but was granted bail the next day by magistrate S Tamilselvi.

The district court passed their orders after Sofia’s father, A A Samy, registered a complaint against the BJP president for verbally abusing his daughter. The police refused to file a case resulting in Samy approaching the court.

“My wife Madhuri and I received our daughter at Chennai airport, and we were flying from Chennai. After we landed at Tuticorin, she (Sofia) saw the BJP leader and said ‘fascist BJP government down, down’. She didn’t utter a word other than that. But when we reached the terminal, Tamilisai and some ten men who received her at the airport surrounded us and bullied my daughter with abusive words. They issued death threats. Finally, the airport police came to our help and secured us in a room,” Samy said.

The case against Sofia is that she had raised the slogan on board, which under civil aviation laws is a crime. Soundararajan had said that she chose to keep quiet on board when Sofia, who also tweeted her intentions before the act.

Sofia, when asked by the magistrate to surrender her passport, gave her expired passport. Later, her father submitted a certified copy of her current passport.