Indian police are looking for the perpetrators of hundreds of false reports disseminated on social media after recent attacks on mosques in the northeast of the country.
In October, violent incidents erupted in Tripura state on the fringes of a rally of hundreds of supporters of a group of right-wing Hindu nationalists.
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These events appear to have taken place in retaliation after the assassination of several Hindu worshipers across the border in predominantly Muslim Bangladesh. Four mosques had been vandalized and a few houses and businesses belonging to Muslims looted.
According to the police, after these events, false information circulated on social networks with the aim of provoking further violence.
"The accounts identified spread rumors, false information, videos and photos unrelated to (what happened) in Tripura,"
a senior police official told AFP on Sunday. the State, on condition of anonymity.
"It is still too early but everyone will be identified and arrested for such facts."
A police report released to the media on Saturday night identified 102 messages which he said were published by "disbelievers" with the aim of provoking conflicts between "
people of different religious communities"
.
According to local media, police wrote to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to request the removal of these messages.
Supervised mosques
Most of them had been deleted Sunday and AFP, those who remained online largely report the plight of Muslims targeted by these attacks.
Since these events, the state of Tripura has been placed on high alert, security forces are monitoring mosques and police have banned gatherings of more than four people.
This state is led by the party of Indian nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Representatives of the Muslim community in minority India have increasingly come under attack and threats, without much possibility of official appeal, since the Hindu Nationalist Party came to power in 2014.
"The state government has still not taken strong action against those who perpetrated violence,"
a coalition of Indian Muslim groups said in a statement on Saturday.
"The police officers who failed to prevent the violence should also be investigated and action taken against them,
" she adds.
