Man believed to be behind communal riots in Bengal’s Basirhat arrested
Police are investigating whether Pritam Pal was responsible for hacking the Facebook account of class 11 student Souvik Sarkar and posting the message that stoked up communal tension.
Pritam Pal, a man in his 30s who is believed to have hacked the Facebook account of a class 11 student and posted a controversial message that triggered communal violence in West Bengal’s Baduria and Basirhat towns last month, has been arrested.
A joint team from the Basirhat police station and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of West Bengal Police on Thursday night arrested Pal, a resident of Basirhat.
Police sources said they were investigating allegations that Pal was responsible for hacking the Facebook account of class 11 student Souvik Sarkar and posting the message.
“We are in the process of interrogating him and trying to understand the extent of his involvement behind instigating the riots,” said a police officer from North 24 Parganas district.
“Everything will be clear to us within the next couple of days,” he said, adding that Pal’s interrogation might lead to names of other people, who were directly or indirectly involved in instigating the riots.
Souvik, who was immediately arrested after the post, kept denying allegations and claimed that somebody had hacked his account.