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Assam Police seek Wajahat Khan in Kolkata over hate speech complaints linked to influencer Sharmishta Panoli’s arrest. Khan is evading arrest; Panoli faces backlash for alleged hate speech. Her lawyer claims improper police conduct in her detention.
Guwahati:
An Assam Police team has reached Kolkata with an arrest warrant for Wajahat Khan, on whose complaint social media influencer Sharmishta Panoli was arrested.
The accused is on the run, the police said.
Mr Khan faces arrest over posts on social media that contained hate speech and derogatory remarks, which hurt religious sentiments, the police said.
The Assam Police filed a case against him earlier this week.
The Kolkata Police, too, filed a case against him based on a complaint by a trust, Shri Ram Swabhiman Parishad, news agency PTI reported.
He was not found at his Kolkata house when the police team went there. Mr Khan also faces many cases in other states.
He had accused Ms Panoli, who is pursuing law, of sharing a video on social media that allegedly contained hate speech and hurt religious sentiments.
Ms Panoli was arrested in a “harakiri” manner and the police have bypassed the basic rules of arrest, her lawyer Mohammed Shamimuddin has said.
“They went to her house. But there was no one at home so the police sought a warrant from a magistrate and arrested her. They didn’t attempt to contact her on the phone either. This shows how the police acted in a harakiri manner and the ground on which the Kolkata Police custody was denied,” the lawyer told NDTV in an exclusive interview.
The 22-year-old was arrested from Gurugram last week after her Instagram post drew protests.
Her arrest sparked a political row, with the BJP and its allies targeting the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal. She was produced in court and sent to judicial custody for 14 days.
Ms Panoli even received support from nearly 7,000 km away. Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch Parliament and the leader of the right-wing Party for Freedom, has said the influencer’s arrest is a “disgrace for freedom of speech” and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure she is freed.
