The Aligarh Police on Friday booked a student of the Aligarh Muslim University for allegedly posting an objectionable tweet in connection with the Pulwama terror attack on Thursday. However, several students of the university claimed that he did not tweet anything objectionable.
At least 40 CRPF jawans were killed when a suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden vehicle into a bus in Lethpora in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district. The Jaish-e-Mohammed extremist group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which is the second most deadly attack in the history of the paramilitary force.
Aligarh Senior Superintendent of Police Akash Kulhary said Basim Hilal, a mathematics student at the university who is from Jammu and Kashmir, was booked under the Indian Penal Code for promoting enmity between different groups and relevant sections of the Information Technology Act, The Hindu reported.
He allegedly posted on Twitter: “How’s the Jaish? Great sir.” The line was in reference to a line from the film Uri, which was based on the Indian Army’s surgical strikes in 2016. Though there were several screenshots on Twitter, Scroll.in has not independently verified it as the account seems to have been deleted.
The university also suspended him for the alleged tweet. “We’ve come to know of the highly objectionable tweet,” spokesperson Omar Saleem Peerzad said. “Taking immediate cognisance he has been suspended by AMU administration. We won’t let the University be discredited. We’ve zero tolerance.”
The former vice president of the university’s students union, Sajad Subhan Rather, told Scroll.in that Hilal has denied tweeting the post that is being circulated.
Several Kashmiri students of the university have also issued a statement, according to Greater Kashmir. “It is a matter of serious concern that a Kashmiri student at AMU is being alleged by some new portals for tweeting an ‘objectionable’ tweet relating to the attack on CRPF in Kashmir,” the statement said. “The student is a responsible person and is aware about his duties in the legal and constitutional framework. The student has denied of tweeting the alleged ‘tweet’ that is being spread in his name.”
The statement added: “It appears that some elements are hell bent on defaming the Kashmir community at Aligarh Muslim University. The concerned student named Mr. Basim Hilal by the news portals studies Mathematics at AMU and is one of the bright students at the campus. We want to communicate the people across the spectrum that Kashmiri students at Aligarh Muslim University are focused on their academics and no attempts should be made to falsely implicate us or to threaten us.”
“No attempts should be made to instill fear among the Kashmiri students across India and we should be allowed a democratic space to present our point of view in a reasonable manner. We don’t want to live under fear, and we want an environment of peace to exist and spread,” the statement added.
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