Two men arrested for pasting Pakistan flag in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas
The two men were arrested on charges of attempting to instigate communal violence in the Gopalnagar area of the North 24 Parganas district.
'Yesterday night, a Pakistani National flag was found to be pasted on the walls of a washroom beside Akaipur railway station under Gopalnagar PS [police station],' the police wrote in a social media post.
It added: 'Investigation revealed that this was wilfully done by 1. Chandan Malakar (30) and 2. Progyajit Mondal (45), both local residents.'
The police said that Malakar and Mondal confessed to the act. The two men had also planned to write 'Hindustan murdabad and Pakistan zindabad', or death to India and long-live Pakistan, on the wall to 'create communal disturbance', it added.
'We shall spare no efforts to bring to book those who are hatching such conspiracies to trigger communal unrest,' the police stated.
This comes against the backdrop of incidents of violence and intimidation against Muslims being reported from several states in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack.
Twenty-six persons were killed and 17 were injured in the attack near Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir on April 22.
The attack took place in the Baisaran area of Anantnag district. Militants fired at tourists, most of whom were from outside the state. The terrorists targeted tourists after asking their names to ascertain their religion, the police said. All but three of those who died were Hindu.
Following the attack, Bharatiya Janata Party MLA and West Bengal Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on April 24 claimed that two Kashmiri men living in Baruipur, on the southern outskirts of Kolkata, had installed a 'NanoBeam 2AC compact and high-performance wireless network bridge' on the roof of their home.
Police in Baruipur denied the claim and stated that both men are engineers from Madhya Pradesh and the device installed on their roof is for an internet connection.
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