A32-year-old App-based motorbike taxi driver was arrested by the Maharashtra Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) and handed over to the local police in Mumbai’s Mahim area for posting allegedly inflammatory comments and videos of Pakistan-based terrorist organisation head Maulana Masood Azhar of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).
The police said the accused had been identified as Mohammad Hassan Abu Sarmad Akhtar, a resident of L J Road in Mahim.
The accused was first interrogated by the ATS, but they found no Pakistan link and said that the man was operating alone, posting objectionable content. He was then handed over to the local police.
The allegations
The ATS had received specific input on October 21 that a resident of Mahim was in touch with a Pakistani Intelligence Operative (PIO). The accused was detained based on the input.
The police teams checked his mobile phones and found that he had created WhatsApp, Telegram, and other groups and was active on social media, posting various types of content.
The police also said that he had made “objectionable comments” under a post related to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and also posted videos of JeM founder Maulana Masood Azhar in various online groups.
Similarly, the police said he had authored several other posts that could create a rift between the two communities.
According to the police, Akhtar posted comments calling for ‘Jihad’. He has joined some extremist and Pakistan-backed groups, which, the local police said, were under investigation.
As the Maharashtra ATS found no evidence that he was in touch with anyone in Pakistan and that he was only posting objectionable content, he was handed over to the local Mahim police station for further investigation.
The FIR was registered under Section 196(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which refers to promoting enmity between groups.