Resolute Amulya tells police her pro-Pak slogans were mistaken

Amulya Leona Noronha, the fiery teenage activist arrested last week for pro-Pakistan sloganeering, has stuck to her stand that she was mistaken as she wasn’t allowed to complete her speech.

Amulya (19) appeared resolute in her defence on the first day of her 10-day police custody. She posed counter-questions to her interrogators, made fun of the vehicle problem on Tuesday midnight when she was produced before a magistrate and a power cut that occurred on Wednesday morning, police sources said.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) is interrogating the journalism student to piece together the events that led to her sloganeering at an anti-CAA rally at the Freedom Park on February 21. She is being held in custody at the Basaveshwara Nagar police station.

Investigators are also asking her about her associates who scripted her speeches, as she had disclosed in a television interview. They asked her if she was inspired by slain journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh. Amulya cried at the mention of Gauri’s name, an officer said.

The activist’s relationship with Ardra Narayana, a graphic designer arrested for disrupting a pro-CAA rally, is also being probed. Amulya and Ardra lived as paying guests in northern Bengaluru’s Basaveshwara Nagar for a few months before Ardra moved out.

SIT officers checked her paying guest room and are scouring her laptop, call log and call record.

“We have learnt that she had links with like-minded activists from North India and chatted with them on a mobile phone app,” the officer said, adding that some of her friends were also questioned.