A teenaged Muslim boy was arrested for a Facebook wisecrack on a high court ruling on the Ganga that the Supreme Court has stayed, and a jibe at the BJP's temple politics. He was charged with "hacking" and allegedly tortured in lock-up.
He was also booked for cheating for using a murdered policeman's image as his profile picture as part of a campaign to seek justice for the officer. Sedition charges were allegedly added after he received bail. Here's what he told The Telegraph on Tuesday:
Factory worker Zakir Ali Tyagi, 18, was walking home on April 2 night after attending a soiree of Urdu poetry at a madarsa in Muzaffarnagar when he realised he was being tailed by a police jeep.
No sooner had he sat down to dinner than sub-inspector Dharmendra Singh walked in, saying he wanted to talk. When Zakir fetched water from the fridge for him, the officer said the constables waiting in the jeep outside were thirsty too.