Muslim group’s members arrested in northeast India

By Ahmad Adil

NEW DELHI (AA) - Indian police in Tripura have arrested four people belonging to Tahreek Farogh-e-Islam, a Muslim group, who went to visit the northeastern state which last month saw communal tensions.

"Our senior members traveled from Delhi to Tripura to take stock of the situation in Tripura that saw communal violence recently. They were called late night by the police and arrested," Aamir Aarfeen Rizvi, the group's general secretary, told Anadolu Agency on Friday. "Our team is heading to Tripura and we will fight the case legally."

The police in Tripura have also confirmed the arrests.

Subrata Chakraborty, a police official in Tripura, told Anadolu Agency that the people were arrested in relation to a case registered a recent incident. He, however, didn't divulge any more details, saying the investigation is ongoing.

A tweet by the police said they "arrested four persons finding them involved in spreading malicious propaganda to create hatred between two religious groups."

Several Muslim organizations bodies from New Delhi have also visited Tripura, where the civil rights groups maintain that over a dozen of mosques and houses belonging to Muslims were attacked by rioters last month.

The police, however, are maintaining that things have been "exaggerated," and that fake videos and photographs have been circulated on social media to "disturb the peace and communal harmony in the state."

Earlier, police said five criminal cases were registered against 71 persons who posted provocative posts on social media.

Last month, the Association for Protection of Civil Rights said over a dozen of confirmed incidents of right-wing mobs attacking mosques, houses, and individuals in Muslim areas of the state.

The rights group said almost all attacks were carried out by various right-wing groups, including the right-wing Vishva Hindu Parishad, that ostensibly gathered to protest anti-Hindu protests in Bangladesh.