Agartala, Nov 6 (UNI) The student wing of CPI-M SFI along with leftists lawyers and trade union members have demonstrated protest before New Delhi Tripura Bhawan yesterday seeking to revoke the notice served to four lawyers of Supreme Court lawyers under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and several sections of IPC.
The SFI leaders here today threatened to launch a mass movement across the country against the Tripura government unless police withdraw the notice and allow people to express their views independently. Criticising Biplab Kumar Deb led BJP-IPFT government they alleged, “Freedom speech and personal liberty have been snatched away during this regime. Police are harassing journalists, media and the individual for making comments in social media.”
The CPI-M leaders argued that the lawyers had visited different locations of the state following communal tension that erupted in Panisagar of North Tripura on Oct 26 last after some minority houses, shops and a mosque were attacked by VHP activists from a rally. The uncalled for incident has created unrest between Hindus and Muslims across the state but police didn’t take any strong action against the offenders.
The lawyers had addressed a press conference and released a fact-finding report titled Humanity under Attack in Tripura Muslims Lives Matter where they alleged that 12 mosques, nine shops and three houses belonging to Muslims were attacked in Tripura in the protests of Hindu groups against attacks on minority Hindus in Bangladesh.
However, Tripura police denied the allegations and claimed that some minor scuffles took place in the state but there was no attack on any mosque or anything of the sort. Police alleged that like other vested interest groups the lawyers with such distorted facts spread communal hatred through social media posts.
A case has been registered against four Supreme Court lawyers Ehtesham Hashmi, Member of Lawyers for Democracy Advocate Amit Srivastava, National Confederation of Human Rights Organisation’s national secretary Ansar Indori and Member of Peoples’ Union of Civil Liberties Mukesh Kumar. and they have been asked by the Tripura Police to appear before the investigation by November 10 next.
The Superintendent of Police (West Tripura) Manik Das said the lawyers were served notice to verify some social media posts that appeared in their identity where they expressed discontent regarding the recent communal incidents with false facts and distorted information.
The lawyers had also demanded the constitution of an inquiry committee headed by a retired High Court judge to investigate the alleged attack on Muslims, compensation to victims, reparation of damaged religious places etc. They had also demanded strict action against people and organizations who made provocative and false posts on social media to incite people.
Meanwhile, Tripura Police registered 11 cases including 4 in North Tripura, 3 in West Tripura, one in Gomati district and three cases in Sepahijala district for instigating communal violence and arrested as many as eight people so far for rumour-mongering.
Earlier, police registered a suo-moto case against Qamar Ghani Usmami, founder and president, Ahsan-ul-Haque Razvi, national secretary, Asif Raza Khan, national vice president and Muddasir Dibkar, executive member of TFIslam for violating the provision of Section 120(B)/ 153A/ 153B/ 503/ 504 of IPC and 13 of UAPA.
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