Police in Manipur on Monday has booked journalist Kishorchandra Wangkhem and activist Erendro Leichombam under the National Security Act (NSA) over their Facebook posts on the death of state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief S Tikendra Singh, who died of COVID-19 last week, reported The Indian Express.
As per the report, both of them were arrested on Thursday. The accused had said in their Facebook posts after Singh’s death that cow urine and dung were not cures for Covid-19.
“Yes, we have booked the two of them under the NSA,” Imphal West SPK Meghachandra Singh told The Indian Express.
The newspaper reported quoting the NSA order on Wangkhem by Th Kirankumar, District Magistrate, Imphal West, which read, “…am satisfied that his activities are prejudicial to the security of the State and to the maintenance of public order.”
The police complaint was filed based on the posts by state BJP vice-president Usham Deban Singh and general secretary P Premananda Meetei, as per the report.
A sedition case was filed against the activist Leichombam in July last year over his allegedly contentious Facebook post, in which he had commented on a picture of Sanajaoba Leishemba, the then newly-elected Rajya Sabha MP and the titular king of the state, greeting Home Minister Amit Shah.
In April 2019, Journalist Wangkhem had walked free after being detained for four-and-a-half months under the NSA for allegedly derogatory comments against the BJP-led government in the state and using “abusive” words for the Chief Minister.