Four members of a Delhi-based Muslim NGO, Tahreek Farogh e Islam, who carried out a visit to Tripura following the violence unleashed by Hindutva groups against the northeast region’s Muslim minorities, have been booked under draconian UAPA.
In a video shared on the NGO’s Facebook page, lawyer Mehmood Pracha said four members of the delegation including TFI national president Pir Qamar Ghani Usmani Qadri Chisti were arrested on Thursday by Tripura Police and charged under the terror law.
All four were sent to 14 days in police custody by Dharmanagar Court.
“A false FIR has been registered against the delegation members to pressurize them for withdrawal of the fact-finding report,” the Muslim group alleged.
“This is clearly a case of violation of human rights of the Muslim community. On one hand, Tripura police has miserably failed to prevent the communal attacks on Muslims, including torching mosques and shops owned by Muslims, while on the other hand, they have applied brute power to suppress the voice of the victims,” said Amir Arfeen Razvi, general secretary of the organisation.
Razvi has sent letters to the President of India and the Chief Justice of India, to seek the country’s tall offices’ intervention in the case.
After repeatedly claiming that there were no attacks against Muslims and their habitations in the state, Tripura police now booked over a hundred people including Supreme Court lawyers, activists, and Muslim leaders under draconian UAPA after they raised the issue of assaults on Muslims in the state.
Tripura police has booked 68 Twitter profiles, 32 Facebook profiles, and two Youtubers under draconian UAPA for their tweets on the recent anti-Muslim violence. The accounts were used to post “distorted or objectionable” contents regarding the alleged Mosque vandalism in the state, NDTV quotes Tripura police as saying. Reports say the police has asked Twitter to suspend these 68 profiles on the platform.
Two days ago, Tripura Police have registered a case under the draconian UAPA against advocate Mukesh of PUCL and advocate Ansar Indori of NCHRO who were members of a fact-finding team to Tripura, to uncover the “targeted attacks on Muslims” in Tripura.
Both the lawyers have been asked to appear before the West Agartala police station by 10 November. The UAPA notices to lawyers, demanded the lawyers to “immediately delete these fabricated and false statements/comments made/circulated by you in the social media.”
Tripura’s BJP government and state police have been claiming that there was no law and order problem in the state and no mosques were burnt by Hindutva groups despite media including Maktoob reported several anti-Muslim crimes across the northeast state.
Maktoob reported more than two dozen hate crimes against Muslims including mosque vandalisation, attacks against Muslim houses, shops, and hawkers, molesting Muslim women, and anti-Muslim and genocidal slogans during the rallies.
