Uttarakhand police to invoke NSA against accused in Ramnagar Facebook case

DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand police is set to book those responsible for the recent communal frenzy in Ramnagar that took place on March 1 after alleged "blasphemous photographs" were posted on Facebook, under the stringent National Security Act (NSA).
This would be just the second instance of the Act being invoked in the country after it was first used in the aftermath of the Muzaffarnagar riots in Uttar Pradesh last year.
The Nainital district police has reportedly prepared a detailed case against 10 accused under NSA provisions, and forwarded it to the Nainital district magistrate, Akshat Gupta. "I am yet to receive the NSA case papers," Gupta said, "but will have to examine them carefully before forwarding them further."
SSP Nainital Vimmi Sachdeva Raman told TOI the police will need to move a designated court (a mandatory condition) to invoke NSA against the accused after the district administration gives its go-ahead.
"The accused are aged between 20 and 42 and have been booked under various sections of the IPC," she said, adding the police have also sought the administration’s nod to invoke the Gangster Act in the case.
The police department wants to send out the message that communal acts will not be tolerated in the hill state, ADGP (Law and Order) Ram Singh Meena said. "We are trying to invoke the strictest of strict sections, so that it comes as a stern warning," he added.
The NSA empowers both the Centre as well as state governments to detain a person, to prevent him or her from acting in a manner prejudicial to the ‘security of India’, and endangering ‘relations of India with foreign countries’. The Act can be invoked even to maintain services essential to the community.
The NSA was passed in 1980, but invoked in a case of communal rioting for the first time by the Uttar Pradesh police when it charged BJP legislator Sangeet Som and a few others for their alleged role in the Muzaffarnagar riots that claimed 60 lives last year.