Kashmiri-bashing: 40 arrests in Bengal before Delhi nudge

KOLKATA: Bengal logged 22 cases of Kashmiri-bashing and cops arrested 40 suspects even before the central advisory on ensuring Kashmiris’ security reached the state government headquarters late on Friday.

The government was yet to collate the weekend’s figures, senior officials told TOI on Sunday, adding that the numbers would most likely rise as cops continued their crackdown on the victimisation of innocent Kashmiris staying in the state. “Many more have been arrested in the meantime,” said S N Gupta, state additional director-general (law and order).



Kolkata police additional commissioner (I) Jawed Shamim could not be reached for comment. The FIR-arrest data excludes those lodged in Kolkata proper.

Outsiders instigated locals: Investigators

“Till now, probe has thrown up two primary facets,” said a senior investigator. “While the arrested were mostly locals, they have been instigated by one or two outsiders in each case. In the Nadia attack, for example, one of the five arrested has links to a right-wing outfit. Passions are being flared by malicious social media posts, which are being doctored and manipulated.”

To counter this, one of the decisions taken at a high-level meeting — convened by DGP Virendra with all district police superintendents — on Saturday was to set up a social media monitoring cell at Nabanna, the state secretariat, alongside the DG control room.

A senior officer also pointed out that legal steps in such cases were hardly working as a deterrent as the FIRs were being registered under bailable penal sections, the victims themselves were refusing to lodge complaints, and several of the arrested were locals without any criminal antecedents. Police are now thinking about moving court to invoke provisions of 108 CrPC against the accused. Under this clause, an undertaking must be given to a judicial magistrate to refrain from indulging in any seditious act for a one-year period.

Friday’s note from the home ministry by Beena Yadav, director, department of J&K affairs, to state home secretary Atri Bhattacharya and the DGP referred to the apex court’s direction that nodal officers be appointed “for the safety and security of residents of Jammu & Kashmir” and to take necessary steps to prevent “acts of violence, discrimination and other coercive acts” against Kashmiris (including Kashmiri students) and other minorities. The note stressed that the state and its nodal officers should “take all necessary steps to prevent any act of assault, threat, intimidation, social boycott etc against Kashmiris ”.

The Centre, in a separate note, has nominated a special superintendent (intelligence branch) as the nodal officer for Bengal. The Lord Sinha Road address of ADG (IB) Niraj Singh has been provided as local contact.