Agartala: The Supreme Court has again restrained Tripura Police from proceeding against four students who had posted critical comments on social media against the alleged communal violence in the state last year.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had pulled up Tripura Police for sending notices to people for social media posts over alleged communal violence in the state despite its interim restraining order on February 7.
It had warned if Tripura Police does not refrain from harassing people by serving notice, it will summon the Home Secretary and the police officials concerned.
An official said reiterating the spirit of its previous stand, SC directed the police not to proceed with the case registered against four students on November 3 last year at West Agartala Police Station after their tweets on a communal flare-up in Tripura following some sporadic incidents of attacks on temples, puja pandals and minority Hindus of Bangladesh.
The officials here stated that the bench of justices D Y Chandrachud and Surya Kant on Friday tagged the petitions of four students with similar pending petitions in the matter.
Tripura police had sent notice to the four students asking them to appear for investigation into the complaints, which appeared to be a violation of SC’s order. Referring to the previous instances of SC’s direction against the Tripura police proceeding against a few others for making social media posts in the same case, the petitioner sought action from the apex court. The bench said, “We will issue notice and tag these petitions and restrain the police from proceeding further.”
According to the report, the apex court after hearing a plea filed by journalist Samiullah Shabbir Khan against a notice issued by the Tripura Police seeking his appearance under Section 41A CrPC had restrained police from acting on its notice to Twitter Inc with regard to the journalist’s tweet about alleged communal violence in the state in January.
The Supreme Court had first directed Tripura Police in November last not to take any coercive action against the three civil society members, including a journalist, in connection with an FIR lodged under the harsh UAPA provisions against them for allegedly bringing to the public domain through social media posts instances of targeted violence against the minority community in Tripura.
