The Assam Police on Tuesday detained a retired school principal in Cachar district for a social media comment linking the Delhi Red Fort blast to the upcoming elections.
A day after the Red Fort blast that killed 13 people, Nazrul Islam Barbhuiyan, a resident of Durgapur in Cachar and former principal of Banskandi NMHS School, allegedly commented “Election is coming” on a Facebook post.
Cachar Assistant Superintendent of Police (Crime) Rajat Kumar Pal confirmed the detention, saying Barbhuiyan had “tried to give a political angle” to a sensitive incident.
“Some people are trying to misuse and politicise this news, because of which divisions can be created among different communities,” Pal told The Indian Express, warning that such comments “could increase the chances of communal incidents.”
He stated that the police’s social media monitoring cell was alerted to the comment, after which Barbhuiyan was detained and questioned about his intent.
Cachar Senior Superintendent of Police Partha Protim Das said the remark was “inappropriate given the gravity of the national security situation” and that the motive behind it was under investigation.
The detention came just hours after Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced that the state government would renew its social media crackdown, a campaign first launched after the April attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam.
This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com. Read the full story here.