Opposition parties in Tripura on Sunday condemned the Police for acting against 102 people over their social media posts on communal violence in the state.
These people, which included journalists, rights activists, have been booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) along with criminal conspiracy and forgery charges.
Earlier the police registered a case against four Supreme Court lawyers under the UAPA and several sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), for allegedly promoting communal disharmony with their social media posts on the recent violence targeting Muslims.
Notices were also served to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to freeze all such accounts.
The Congress on Sunday demanded the withdrawal of cases against all those who were booked for allegedly trying to “spread communal disharmony”.
“The mosque at Panisagar was attacked by activists of VHP and houses of minority communities were vandalised by them… they should be arrested first. I do not think the lawyers, who visited the state, came with any bad intentions and did not spread any communal hatred,” Tripura Congress president Birajit Sinha said.
On October 26, violence erupted in the state’s Panisagar town, where a mosque, a few houses and shops were vandalized by VHP activists.
The incident took place when the VHP activists had taken out a rally on October 26 to protest against communal violence in Bangladesh.
Four people were arrested and the police claimed that no mosque was burnt and the images shown were not from Tripura, Hindustan Times reported.
A Delhi-based lawyer was booked under the UAPA on Wednesday for allegedly sharing fake details on social media concerning the incident.
This move came hours after 71 people were booked over alleged fake and provocative social media posts regarding communal violence in the state.