Lawyer held for tweeting against Yogi Adityanath

Kanpur, March 17 (IANS) A district court lawyer has been arrested on sedition charges for retweeting a video of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and calling him a ‘terrorist’.

The man, Abdul Hannan, commented on a tweet by the government media advisor Shalabh Mani Tripathi on Saturday. The lawyer was arrested on Monday, an official said on Tuesday.

The tweet by Tripathi had a video of Adityanath’s Vidhan Sabha speech supporting cane charge on people protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC).

Tripathi captioned the video: “Tum kagaz nahi dikhaoge, aur danga bhi failaoge, to hum lathi bhi chalvayenge, gharbaar bhi bikvayenge aur haan poster bhi lagvayenge (You will not show the papers and will also participate in riots, then we will cane charge, auction your houses and put up posters).”

Hannan retweeted Tripathi’s post by calling Adityanath a terrorist.

In another tweet, Hannan announced that he would provide free legal help to protesters and requested all “constitution lovers” to follow him and share his tweet.

Ajay Seth, SHO of Kalyanpur police station, said, “We have registered a FIR against Abdul Hannan who has been arrested and sent to jail after being produced before the court.”

–IANS

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