“Police department has set up a dedicated Cyber Cell to actively monitor Social Media activities”: DC S Lakshmanan

The communal tension or we should rather say the riot-rumour, which has been doing rounds since last few days, has creeped in a lot of insecurities in every citizen’s mind. Especially the citizen living in and around Madhurband and Kalibari Chor area. To address all the insecurities and give an assurance to the residents of Barak Valley last evening, District’s deputy commissioner S Lakshmanan gave an interview to All India Radio where Hitabrata Bhattacharjee quizzed him.

Bhattacharjee started the interaction by asking Lakshmanan about the current scenario of the district… Lakshmanan began by wishing everyone a very happy new year. He termed the recent communal clash between two groups as “extremely unfortunate” according to him it began with an episode of stone pelting in a “critical” area, which later took a communal shape. He termed the act as a crime, and mentioned that several arrests have been made and judiciary has started its procedure.

He referred to the violent episode as a “chota sa incident” and said whenever there is a conflict between two particular groups it easily gets a communal colour. He believes that the incident could have been sorted in 15 to 20 minutes maximum, but outrage in Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp kept it going for days. “People irresponsibly post many things, …this has happened here and this and that there…which makes a small incident look like a catastrophe,” he said.

Bhattacharjee interrupted Lakshmanan and threw a counter question; he asked if the administration took any step to stop the malicious and provocative outrage on social media… Lakshmanan admitted that the administration cannot stop activity on social media immediately as it is a public domain, he added that the Social media platforms are run by MNCs which are headquartered out of the country and follow the law of that land and hence it takes a lot of time to do an investigation and take something off from the platform.

That does not mean that the administration is doing nothing, the deputy commissioner informed the Police department has set up a dedicated cyber cell to keep an eye on social media activities. “How and what are posted on social media, we are keeping active surveillance on that,” said Lakshmanan.

He appealed to the people of Barak Valley, to have a “responsible attitude” towards social media, “Whatever we post on social media platforms can be seen by multiple people, multiple number of times all over the world, because it’s an open platform,” the deputy commissioner added. If something baseless is posted irresponsibly on social media, because of its enormous reach it can leave a “negative impact” on law and order in a significant manner feels Lakshmanan.

It’s not all negative though; the deputy commissioner appreciated the responsible behaviour of people of Silchar and said “they have been very cooperative.” He said the “Poila Baisakh” (Bengali New year) Charak Puja, Friday Namaz and other celebrations happened peacefully all over Barak Valley including in parts where there was a “riot like situation”. According to Lakshmanan that is a great sign. “The common people of Silchar stood by the administration to ensure there is no breach of peace and tranquility and I am grateful to them,” he concluded.