Guwahati, July 18 (PTI) A senior officer of the Assam Police Monday claimed that a strategy to arrest supporters of banned outfits who take to social media to express their support for those groups has yielded positive results from dissuading such youths from joining outlawed organisations.
Director General of Assam Police Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta’s comment came in the wake of the arrest of a college student from Udalguri district on Sunday for allegedly supporting the United Liberation Front of Assam-Independent in a social media post.
The police have moved away from its earlier approach of counselling people, mostly youths, who take to social media to show their support for the banned outfits as that “soft tactic” was not successful in stopping them from joining the militant groups later, the DGP told reporters.
Pramod Kalita was the second college student of the state to have been arrested within two months for posts on social media allegedly supporting ULFA-I.
“We had earlier tried to dissuade such people through counselling, but it was not successful. When we started making arrests, it has stopped. We think that our strategy of arresting such people is successful,” the DGP claimed.
“We came across the Facebook post by Pramod Kalita (a second-year graduation student of Tangla College) in which he has written in support of the ULFA. He was arrested on the basis of it under relevant sections of the law,” a police officer in Udalguri said.
Another college student, Barshashri Buragohain, was arrested from Uriamghat in Golaghat district on May 18 for allegedly writing a post titled ‘Akou Korim Rashtra Droh’ (will rebel against the nation again) on Facebook.
Mahanta maintained that if someone displays only “emotional inclination” towards the outfits, they can be stopped from indulging in such activities through counselling or by applying family pressure.
“But if they show more vigorous support, we will arrest them. We can’t let off anyone easily who talks about waging war against the nation,” he said.
Meanwhile, Buragohain is appearing for her second-semester examination from the prison following a directive by a Golaghat court to the authorities to enable the student to sit for her examination.
The DGP said if Barshashri Buragohai “gives an undertaking that she won’t go to the ULFA, we will help her secure release and we have got some positive response.” Defending her arrest, the DGP claimed that she was apprehended only after analysing her contact details and based on the tagline of her social media post.
“The tagline shows the frame of mind of the writer. One must be careful about it,” he added.
Echoing similar views, Special DGP GP Singh said that people showing an active inclination to join ULFA will be arrested and the earlier tactic of counselling such people had not yielded desired results.
“Friends, Came across this post on Facebook. Unfortunately, this is not the only instance. We’ve similar instances where people showing such tendencies were counselled in presence of their family members and allowed to go home. Later, they joined ULFA,” Singh wrote on Twitter.
He was referring to a post by one Prodip Kumar Saikia in which the latter claimed that his niece had written social media posts supporting ULFA and was counselled by the police multiple times against such activities.
However, she later left home and has since joined the outfit along with four other girls, Saikia claimed.
“In the interest of such individuals, society and proceeding per law, we’ve been arresting people who have shown active inclination to join ULFA and/or expressed desire to join groups that profess to wage war against our nation,” the special DGP added on the micro-blogging site. PTI SSG MM MM
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