Pulwama: Two Kashmiris booked for sedition in B'luru

Two Kashmiri youths have been booked for sedition following social media posts praising the Pulwama suicide bomber. One of them has been arrested while there is no trace of the second person.

Tahir Latif, a student of civil engineering at Reva University, was arrested from his hostel after his WhatsApp status went viral. He had put out a video of Adil Ahmad Dar, the suspected suicide bomber, and captioned it: “A big salute to this brave man !!! May Allah accept your Shahadat and give you (the) highest place in Jannah #Shaheed Aadil Bhai.”

The jurisdictional Bagalur police quickly got into action and booked him under IPC sections 124A (sedition), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) and under different sections of the anti-terrorism law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). He was arrested, and a magistrate remanded him in judicial custody.

The HAL police booked another Kashmiri, Aabid Malik, for sedition after he put out a Facebook post supporting the Pulwama suicide bomber and criticising the Indian Army. Police booked him for sedition, criminal conspiracy and under the UAPA following a complaint by a VHP activist. The Facebook post has since been deleted.

Police have learnt that Malik hails from Srinagar. His Facebook profile says he is from Bangalore University. Police also found out that he lived in Kumaraswamy Layout but left Bengaluru six months ago. He worked as a project manager at a company in Hennur where the police obtained his CV and are looking out for him.