Student, Retired Teachers, Lawyer Among 19 Arrested For Remarks On J&K Attack

At least 19 people have been arrested in three states in the northeast over remarks on the terror attack in Pahalgam, which claimed 26 lives, including those of a Navy officer and an officer from the Intelligence Bureau.

The people who have been arrested in Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura include an MLA, a journalist, students, a lawyer and retired teachers. Most of the arrests were from social media posts.

So far, 14 arrests have taken place in Assam alone.

The first arrest came on Thursday when Aminul Islam, an MLA from the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) - an opposition party in Assam - was arrested and charged with sedition for his statement that the Pulwama attack in 2019 and Tuesday's Pahalgam attack were "conspiracies by the government". He was sent to police custody for four days on Friday.

The other arrests in Assam till Friday included Md Jabir Hussain from Hailakandi, Md AK Bahauddin and Md Javed Mazumder from Silchar, Md Mahahar Mia from Morigaon and Md Sahil Ali from Sivasagar. Md Musta Ahmed alias Sahel from Karimganj was arrested on Friday night for posting 'Pakistan Zindabad' on Facebook.

Among them, Hussain is a journalist, Bahauddin is a computer science student at the Assam University in Silchar and Mazumder is a lawyer.

On Saturday, the police arrested 25-year-old Md Jarif Ali and Anil Bania, the district secretary of a student body, Satra Mukti Sangram Parishad, from Biswanath. Sumon Mazumdar alias Bulbul Alom Mazumdar was arrested in Hailakandi, Mashud Azhar in Nagaon and another person was arrested from Hajo near Guwahati - all for making "anti-India comments" online.

The Cachar district police also arrested two more individuals for posting "content supporting Pakistan" on social media.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said, "If required, we will impose provisions of the National Security Act on them. We are examining all social media posts, and action will be taken against those who, we feel, are anti-national... There are no similarities between Bharat and Pakistan. The two countries are enemy nations and we must remain that way."

Tripura

In Tripura, there have been four arrests so far, including those of two retired teachers.

Jawhar Debnath, a retired teacher and one Kuldip Mandal were arrested for making "anti-national comments online" in the context of the Pahalgam terror attack in Dhalai district. Another retired teacher, Sajal Chakraborty, was arrested from Dharmanagar of North Tripura district and Jahirul Islam was taken into custody from Sonamura in Sepahijala district.

Meghalaya

In Meghalaya, a 30-year-old man named Simon Shylla was arrested on Friday from the East Khasi Hills district after he posted an "anti-national comment" on a video telecast by a news channel from Guwahati.