BASA officers to wear black badges today to protest against arrest

PATNA: The Bihar Administrative Service Association ( BASA) on Sunday announced that all its cadre officers would wear black badges during work on Monday to protest the arrest of senior BAS officer Alok Kumar for allegedly inciting and sharing communally sensitive posts.

In a meeting held today, BASA functionaries called the arrest of Kumar, posted as deputy secretary in the election department, as against the norms and demanded the withdrawal of the FIR against the officer.

“We demand that the FIR against the officer should be withdrawn and Kumar should be released,” said Sunil Kumar Tiwary, general secretary of BASA.

BASA president Shashank Shekhar Sinha questioned why no investigation was done before registering an FIR and also condemned the way the BAS officer was arrested.

The BASA functionaries said the association would chalk out its next course of action at a meeting to be held on Monday. “The officer, Alok Kumar, has been charged under Section 153-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 66 of the IT Act, 2000,” said an official of the economic offence unit (EOU) of the Bihar Police.

An inspector rank police officer of the economic offences unit (EOU), Anuj Kumar Singh, in a letter to EOU SP, has written that hurting religious sentiments of the Muslim community through provocative posts was a cognisable offence and the BAS officer was tracked with the help of his mobile number location. Thereafter, an FIR was registered against him late on Friday evening and on Saturday the BAS officer was arrested for further investigation.