Four years ago, a friend helped 23-year-old Sahadat Ali, a mechanic in Assam’s Dhubri district, open a Facebook account.
Ali, who works in a garage in Tamarhat market, told Scroll that besides watching videos on the social media website, he does not do much else. “My phone is mostly used by my friends at the garage, who make calls and play games,” he said.
On May 13, six days after India launched military strikes on alleged terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan as part of Operation Sindoor, the police arrived at Ali’s garage.
The officials from Tamarhat police station showed him an allegedly objectionable post made from his phone. “I told them that I did not share it and I’m not aware of it. But they took me away,” Ali told Scroll.
In the first information report against Ali, sub-inspector Pradipt Daimary said he had received information that Ali had allegedly “shared a post” that was derogatory of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from his Facebook account. It asked: “Why is he asking for forgiveness now?”
When Scroll asked Ali about the post, he said he did not know about it.
Ali was booked for terrorism under Section 113 (3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, as well as Section 152, which replaced the charge of sedition in the Indian Penal Code. “[His] action not only endangers the peace and security of the nation, but also [the] sentiments of the citizens and promotes hostility,” the complaint said.
The police told the court that Ali “is anti-Indian and found speaking against Hindus and promoting hatred against the Hindu community”. They also accused him of supporting Pakistan-sponsored terrorist activists against India in Jammu and Kashmir.
This story was originally published in scroll.in. Read the full story here.