Activist Rakesh Handoo's lawyer claims the case has its origins in the "power struggles" between factions of the Pandit community in the Kashmir ValleyThe Jammu and Kashmir police have arrested Kashmiri Pandit activist Rakesh Handoo in the investigation into online circulation of threat posters against migrant Kashmiri Pandits working in the Kashmir Valley.Handoo was arrested from his Faridabad home in Haryana on October 17 following a police complaint by Rohit Raina, a migrant Kashmiri Pandit government employee working in Baramulla.Based on preliminary inquiry, the police registered a case in Baramulla under Section 66F (cyberterrorism) and Section 84C of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Handoo was on October 27 remanded to five days in police custody by a special mobile magistrate in Baramulla.Handoo is a well-known activist within his community.

He first hit the spotlight after unsuccessfully contesting the 2008 J&K legislative assembly elections against National Conference president Farooq Abdullah from Hazratbal constituency in Srinagar. Handoo could secure just 199 votes.

As part of the Centre’s rehabilitation efforts, around 6,000 migrant Kashmiri Pandits have over the years received government employment in Kashmir under the Prime Minister’s Special Rehabilitation and Employment Package. The initiative aims to facilitate displaced Pandits’ return to Kashmir.

The posters threatening migrant Kashmiri Pandits had first emerged in August, with an online letter warning them to “change their ways”. As the threats surfaced, chief minister Omar Abdullah raised concerns and urged security agencies to act. “The law and order and security administrations, including the police and our intelligence agencies, must not take these matters lightly.

They need to make headway to determine where these threats are emanating from,” Abdullah said, underlining that law and order and security were under the purview of lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha.Authorities subsequently instructed departments to send Kashmiri Pandit employees on leave; community members were advised to remain alert and take precautions. Many such threat posts surfaced online subsequently.

Some even carried the names and phone numbers of Pandit employees, many of whom work in the revenue department.In its detailed report of inquiry, the police have submitted to the court that Handoo repeatedly circulated threat-related electronic material purportedly originating from the ‘Soldier of Resistance/United Liberation Council’. “The material was altered by removing the original identifying particulars/mobile number and thereafter circulated in a manner projecting Rohit Raina, the complainant, as the person against whom the threat had been issued. The inquiry further establishes circulation of the complainant's name and photograph along with such threat-related material and repeated posts concerning him,” the prosecution submitted before the court of mobile magistrate while seeking Handoo’s police remand.“Such acts disclose deliberate use/manipulation and transmission of computer/electronic resources with knowledge of the likely consequences of the material so circulated, including creation of a perception that the complainant is a target of a terror/outfit threat, thereby causing or being likely to cause serious apprehension regarding his safety and security,” the report stated.The prosecution submitted to the court that Handoo had been twice served notices and given an opportunity to join the inquiry, before being arrested.Handoo’s lawyer Aazim Pandit told INDIA TODAY his client’s bail application could not be taken up by the Baramulla court as Section 66F of the IT Act is a scheduled offence to be taken up before a National Investigation Agency (NIA) court. “We are now moving the bail application before the designated NIA court in Sopore,” he said. “My client has denied having authored, altered or manipulated any material as alleged.”Aazim claimed the case was a result of “power struggles” between factions of the Kashmiri Pandit community in the Valley. “There is no element or angle of terrorism in it at all.

The applicant is a reputed social activist with a long history of activism for the protection of rights of people, and the complaint is a product of the rivalry between these factions,” he said, adding that even the report of the investigating officer “does not allege” that the applicant has “any link with any terrorist organisation” or that he had “any role in the creation of the threat material”.“A dispute between rival factions of a community cannot be given the colour of cyberterrorism by invoking Section 66F of the IT Act, and the criminal process cannot be allowed to be used to settle such a dispute. The prosecution's case is of a completed act of circulation, and Section 84C of the IT Act has been invoked mechanically,” Aazim argued.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- Ends