On Wednesday, the Coimbatore rural cyber crime police arrested a 24-year-old ABVP activist for supporting ex-BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma through a Facebook post. The activist arrested from Sennanur, Coimbatore has been identified as Karthi Thandamuthur who had shared Nupur Sharma’s debate video on Facebook and had captioned it saying, “I’ll repeat this every day…Nupur Sharma only repeated what’s written… what wrong did she say?”
According to the reports, several Hindu organizations questioned the Tamil Nadu government for arresting Karthi and also criticized the Police. The Police stated that Karthi was produced before a judicial magistrate and was later remanded to judicial custody. The video and the caption posted by Karthi have been removed from his Facebook wall.
Sources : Police arrest one Karthi of Coimbatore an ABVP activist for promoting religious enmity.
— Savukku_Shankar (@savukku) June 14, 2022
The said Karthi has reiterated what BJP Spokesperson Nupur Sharma said about Prophet Police quickly swung into action and prevented the situation from spilling over into a fresh row
Earlier a similar incident was reported in Maharashtra’s Thane district where Saad Ashfaq Ansari, an engineering student had extended his support to Nupur Sharma. In an Instagram story, Ashfaq had written, “A 50-year-old man marrying a 6-9-year-old kid is clear child abuse. And I don’t know how you people support this. Will you give your 6-year-old daughter to a 50-year-old man? (think about it).”
Saad, for his Instagram story, was assaulted and abused by a Muslim mob and was later arrested by the Bhiwandi police amid the ongoing row over Nupur Sharma’s comments on Prophet Muhammad. Police also arrested him for his extended support to Nupur Sharma by referring to her as a ‘brave lady.’
The controversy over Nupur Sharma’s comments seems to be still burning as several FIRs have been registered against Nupur Sharma. Recently, the Bhiwandi Police and also the Kolkata Police issued summons against Sharma to question her. Mumbai police have also summoned her asking her to appear on June 25. Similarly, Mumbra police in Thane have also asked her to appear on June 22.
Sharma has been facing threats including death threats from Islamists since she made some comments as per the Islamic texts on Prophet Muhammad that irked the Muslims. She argued that since people are mocking the Hindu faith repeatedly, the Hindus can also mock other religions by referring to Islamic beliefs and the life of Prophet Muhammad.
Her statement was taken out of context by Alt News co-founder and alleged fact-checker Mohammed Zubair, who released an army of trolls and Islamists after Sharma. Multiple FIRs have been registered against Sharma after the remarks and open calls for her death have also been made. Sharma meanwhile also received threats from extremist organizations across the border. The Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) supporters from Pakistan announced a cash reward of Pakistani Rupees 50 lakhs (Around 19.5 lakhs INR) to anyone who would behead Nupur for allegedly committing ‘blasphemy’.
In the recent case, the Coimbatore Police has booked the 24-year-old ABVP activist named Karthi under section 153A of the Indian Penal Code and section 67 of the Information Technology Act for extending support to ex-BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma.
