Assam Police detained two Delhi-based journalists of independent news website HW News Network on November 14 afternoon in Karimganj district “on a request by Tripura Police”.
The journalists, who were in North Tripura’s Dharmanagar on work assignment, were served a notice by the Tripura Police on November 14 morning “for promoting enmity on grounds of religion and being a part of hatching a criminal conspiracy”.
Reports said that the Tripura Police asked the journalists to proceed towards Agartala for recording their statement in connection with a case lodged against them at Kakraban police station in Gomati district.
However, the police said, journalists Sammriddhi K Sakunia (21) and Swarna Jha (24), instead of proceeding to Agartala, diverted their route towards Guwahati and crossed the inter-state border at Churaibari to avoid security surveillance.
Later, on the request of Tripura Police, their counterparts in Assam detained the journalists.
In a statement, the HW News Network stated: “The Assam Police said that they don’t have any case against our journalists but Tripura police asked them to detain them.”
On November 12, the journalists reported on a mosque that was torched in Tripura’s Gomati district. They arrived in Dharmanagar on November 13 to report on the alleged targeting of another mosque and properties owned by Muslims in Panisagar subdivision, the region hit by violence spurred during a VHP rally on October 26.
Tripura Police had been claiming that no mosques were torched during the communal flare up in the state in October. The police refuted such reports as baseless and fake and had booked more than 100 people for “inciting communal tensions” in the state.
